Life is full of struggles, but some have more than others.  Days ago, I spoke with someone who has been struggling over the course of decades.  The thoughts of suicide have come and gone; it is the fear of the Lord that has kept these desires at bay.  Ever since I first met him over a dozen years ago, he’s always been depressed.  He told me that he felt guilty and ashamed of himself for letting God down.

He thought of himself as a failure and believed that God thought so, too.  I disagreed with him.  I told him that the fact that he’s standing firm against the current, despite a few steps back from time to time, showed that he’s making progress: he’s not failing, he’s moving on.  Had he given up, he would have been swept by the current and we would not be having this conversation.  Standing matters!

This reminds me of an illustration given by C. S. Lewis about taking a test that we know we’ll fail.  There are two choices: We can either leave the paper blank or we can try to answer it as best as we can.  If we leave the paper blank, we will get no point at all or zero, but if we try, we’ll get some points. God looks at our efforts and He gives us points for trying.  At times standing matters more than walking. 

At the beginning of the week our sister Andri was admitted to the hospital and had to be put on a ventilator.  When Santy and I saw her, in a comatose state, our hearts crushed.  But when we saw her again a couple of days ago, our hearts leaped with joy.  She was off the ventilator and all cheerful; for the first time in weeks, we could communicate with her. Yes, she did not recognize us and could not remember going to church but this was what she said about church, “I love church.”  Coming out of her mouth, that touched our hearts. She can’t do much; she cannot sing in the choir or clean the church.  But she can still love the church.  To God that is more than enough.

Pastor Paul