When I went to church last week the sermon open with the line, “We all fail at times. And when we sin…”
I had a recent failure on my mind, or at least a fear of having failed, and these words pretty much pinned me to my pew. You see, what I was bemoaning as a failure didn’t actually involve sin. It involved my expectations of myself.
The rest of the sermon was lost as I marveled at how different my life would be if I defined failure as sin–and only sin. Think of all the things I could let go of!
READ MORE: CAN I GET IT ALL DONE?
I could let go of feeling like a failure when I’m not able to give my kids the things I’d like to give them (it’s not a sin to stick to my budget).
I could free myself of failing to get the logistics of the day worked out smoothly (that’s inconvenient, but not a sin).
I could shrug when I forget my daughter’s dental appointment (it’s a groaner, but a brain blip is hardly a sin).
I might even be able to feel sad instead of guilty when I can’t help others in a substantial enough way to make their lives better (I can only do what it’s in my power to do, and that’s not a sin at all).
Letting go of things that aren’t failures in God’s eyes would probably do me a lot of good. For one thing, it would free up a lot of brain space. For another, it would draw a clear line between God’s expectations of me and my own. And maybe, just maybe, that would help me become less distracted by my own ideas of who I want to be, so I could focus on becoming the person He wants me to be.
