Failure is something we all have in common. Our failure, however, does not have to define us. There is something in our DNA that was put there to look beyond our failure. Our failure does not have to be our doom. There was a mighty act of love that took place that forever dealt with our failure. Jesus the man took our failure on His back and it was nailed to the cross with His body. His substitute punishment for our sins paid for our failure. We don’t have to wallow in our failure.
It’s hard to completely forget our failure. Sometimes failure leaves scars. But those scars, while they might remind us of what happened, do not have to give us our identity. Failure can be used to build upon. Failure can help us setup safeguards to not repeat our failure. The memory of pain can motivate us not to repeat failure. Seeing our scar might remind us (and others) about failure, but it’s not our destiny. The Bible says that God has us engraved in the palm of His hand.
“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…”
It is probably a messianic verse that pointed in Old Testament times to a time in the future where massive scars would forever exist on the palms of Jesus the man (the God man). God now bears a scar. It was put there by failure — but it was our failure, not His. This was His plan from the beginning. When you go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and they were banished from the Garden from that point on, God spoke to the serpent and said: “…he will crush your head…” This must have spoken to the victory that Jesus triumphed over the serpent a few thousand years later.
This is what our identity is in — it is in Christ. His death was a punishment death for our sins and it forever paid the penalty for our sins. Somewhere in our DNA God created us to be redeemed, to walk in forgiveness.
Failure causes pain. Pain lingers. Memories linger. But the core problem has been dealt with. When we realize that, we can walk instead of crawl. We can hold our head high again and know that God paid for our sin — even that one.
There will probably always be an “older brother” type… You know, like in the Prodigal Son story where the older brother has an attitude about the younger brother’s wild ways and can’t seem to accept that he’s been forgiven and restored. We can’t really do much about the older brother attitude. Maybe they’ll learn. But it’s not where we need to focus if we’re the one being restored after failure and forgiveness.
Did you see the movie The Mission? At one point a missionary, I believe, cuts the rope that holds the weight that a certain man is carrying up a mountain. At this point he is freed from the weight of his sin. Forgiveness has taken place. The penance or continually paying back and finding identity in the failure is not necessary. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
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