Topic: Failure

Despite first appearances, Jesus’s call to “count the cost” of following him is not so much about ensuring we can succeed as it is about ensuring we can faithfully persevere in the face of failure.

We are often afraid to face what must be faced in order to enter the new world God has promised, but God continues to promise an abundance of blessings when we overcome our fears and obey.

The abusive use of anger to manipulate other people’s behaviour is, Jesus says, on the same spectrum as physical violence, and Jesus calls this preacher to repent of it.

It is not from the halls of power but from humble places that the love which offers wholeness and healing and peace erupts into life.

All of us, men especially, share responsibility for confronting and changing the culture that enables men to feel entitled to rape, and Jesus leads us into the new culture that sets us all free.

Pretending to be better than we are alienates us from God and one another. Being open and real about our weaknesses and failures open us to God and one another.

The life that Jesus calls us too will not be found and enjoyed until we give up trying to engineer the life we dreamed we were supposed to be living.

Meeting us on the road of despair, Jesus reveals to us that suffering and defeat are God’s means of bringing new life and hope.

Jesus died an apparent failure, but in his resurrection, the failure’s power over us is broken for ever.

While the final judgement of each individual is rightly left to God, we are called to ensure that we are found to be loving, merciful and trustworthy by the world around us.

A healthy self-esteem is not one that thinks itself better than others, but one that, in solidarity with others, accepts the merciful gift of life and love that Jesus offers us.

Sometimes God has to kill off our hopes and destroy our faith structures in order to create space for new life and truth to arise among us.