“For a righteous man may fall seven times And rise again, But the wicked shall fall by calamity,” Proverbs 24:16 NKJV
If life is a race, there will come a time for all of us when we fail to make the time we strive for, fall short of the distance, or even fall by the wayside victim to injury.
Yet, as children of God, we are victorious and need to simply get up!
The disappointment of not meeting some goal or deadline we set for ourselves is no reason to live a defeated existence. There are often achievements that don’t come as fast as we’d like. The path to reaching a milestone is often harder than we imagine. We may have false starts or stumble over hurdles even as we see others continue toward their finish line.
It is vital to get up and finish our race even if we feel like we’ve been left behind. We may run slower than others, have to run uphill or even run in the rain when necessary. If we sat around waiting for “ideal conditions” we would never finish!
Proverbs 24:16 indicates a righteous man may fall and fall more than once. We often shortchange ourselves when we fall/fail. We may not rise promptly because we become fixated on the fall. Still, the difference between God’s children and those who are “wicked” is that when (not if) we fall, we can rise.
Too often, many are deceived into not getting back up. Doubts about being too late or too old, too weak or too slow keep people from completing their course. Instead of getting up and continuing to run, many go off to the sidelines instead. If we aren’t careful, we can allow the fear of failure to keep us out of the running.
When we embrace the fact that we may fall instead of living in fear of failure, getting up is that much easier. When babies learn to walk they fall. Yet, children often instinctively and quickly get back up because they haven’t learned what “failure” is. Or, if they fall and hurt themselves they look to a parent (as we should look to our Father) to help them.
Failure doesn’t keep children from trying. Furthermore, once they learn to walk, they start running all over the place!
Don’t second guess the race God has called you to run. If God has called you to run it, He will equip you to finish.
Should you stumble don’t stop. When you fall, get up!
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith,”
2 Timothy 4:7 NKJV
B Is for Blessed! 