Have I Failed God?

by Jacki Glew, Board of Deacons

Psalm 102

Have you ever felt like a failure? Ever felt like you weren’t good enough? We all have had those times. Maybe you’ve failed a test, failed to win, failed someone you love, failed at a job, failed at a marriage, failed to keep your home, failed someone’s trust… We’ve all failed. None of us is perfect. And maybe then we think, Have I failed God?

Psalm 102 is written by someone who is crying out to God when he failed miserably. Any of us can remember a sad, heart-breaking moment in our lives, and could put ourselves in the same shoes as this psalm’s author. Isn’t it often at times when we are farthest down that we rely most on God and call out to Him for help?

¹ “Hear my prayer, LORD;
let my cry for help come to You.
² Do not hide Your face from me
when I am in distress.
Turn Your ear to me;
when I call, answer me quickly.”

We may fail at things in life, but God never fails us. He loves us too much to do that. He watches over us every single moment of our lives, and wants the best for us even though our tough times may seem like the worst that can happen. God allows failures in our lives to teach us lessons and to show us how strong we can be. And at the same time, we realize how weak we are without Him.

¹⁹ “The LORD looked down from his sanctuary on high,
from heaven He viewed the earth,
²⁰ to hear the groans of the prisoners
and release those condemned to death.”

Think about how hard you would try to reach out and grab a lifeline if you were drowning. If death were staring you in the face, as it is for the author of this psalm, wouldn’t you do anything to stay alive?

Guess what? God has thrown you a lifeline. We are all condemned to die unless we grab it. Ironically, we can be saved because someone else died in our place: Jesus Christ.

But wait… Who’s being condemned to death here? You might be thinking, I’m not a sinner! I haven’t murdered! I haven’t stolen anything! I haven’t committed adultery! I’m a good person! I’m going to heaven, right??

Romans 6:23 says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The price of committing sin is death. Any sin. Tell me a time you haven’t lied. Better yet, tell God. How many times in your life have gone by where you didn’t put God first? That’s certainly not honoring Him.

God is perfect, and eternity with Him requires you to be perfect, too. There is no person on earth who has ever been perfect. Except one: Jesus Christ. Only Jesus could be the perfect sacrifice to stand in our place to die on the cross. He was condemned to die in our place so that when we face God one day, we can put on Christ’s white robe of righteousness, and it will cover all of our sins and God will see us as perfect again.

So, again, I’m going to ask you, Have you failed God?

Have you failed to thank Him for loving you so much that He sent His son Jesus to die in your place?

Have you failed to honor Easter as a holy day honoring Jesus’ sacrifice for us? Are you treating it as some kind of cosmic joke and worshiping a big white bunny with lots of chocolate instead?

Have you failed to recognize that every single one of us is a sinner, and that we deserve God’s wrath, punishment, and death?

Have you failed to remember that Christ overcame death when that gravestone was rolled away and now we can overcome death, too?

Will you pray to God today to ask His forgiveness for going your own way, and ask Him to bring Christ into your life to receive His free gift of eternal life?

Don’t fail Him now.