Have you ever read the second chapter of Proverbs?
If not, go get that Bible. Do it. Crack it open and take a read from the first fifteen verses.
I’ll wait.
…
Okay. Maybe, for you, this isn’t profound. Maybe it sounds like typical Biblical wisdom, paralleling the adages of the Bible’s Top 100. (By that I mean verses like Romans 3:23, Acts 2:38, and the biggest crowd-pleaser of them all, John 3:16).
Anyway, when I read this in church today, it seemed amazing.
See, I try to do a lot of things as a Christian. I try to read my Bible everyday. I try to pray ceaselessly. I try to set an example in behavior and attitude. But I fail to find time to read. I forget to pray. And sometimes, well, I can be a really terrible person.
And while I realize that failing as a Christian is part of wearing the title, that God loves me regardless, and that, according to James, I’m supposed to actually take joy in my failures and hardships, sometimes I feel like I’m never going to learn to do things the right way. I worry I’ll forever be making the same mistakes so that, at ninety-seven years old, I’ll still struggle with spiritual stagnation or keeping a check on my tongue or having patience or discovering selflessness.
I’m afraid I’ll never grow out of this struggle I’m in.
Passages like this one offer me the encouragement I feel I need to grow. They make promises of the relationship God wants with me and that I starve for. They make me yearn for a faith that’s stronger, that means more. They make me keep trying.
