Failures and TriumphsYour blog post

Christians are recipients of such grace and mercy and power you'd think we'd make good decisions and avoid trouble. Anngt! Studies of scripture make one thing very clear: we have a perfect POSITION but we have that fallen nature still resident. We will struggle to obey and please God. We will give in to our own selfish desires. We will backtrack or just settle for a track that runs CLOSE but not on the track God has shown us we should be on. I speak as a former pastor. I speak from bitter experience. This, my first post, isn't the time for details. I only want to kick off sharing posts by saying you'll be reading the nitty-gritty, not the nice-and-pretty.

No big reason to go on and on with this topic. We all know it well. We'd like Do-Overs. We have regrets. Guilt? Yeah, as clean as the slate is wiped and as free from guilt we are in the sight of God, we are beset by memories. We wake in the night and struggle to get back to sleep.

I suppose I should say something positive now. I can. Knowing I'm not alone and knowing I have a circle of friends to lean on 24/7 is pretty much how I get through. If something is bothering me (you) it's important to share it with that circle. Be sure you're sharing positives as well. If not, your circle might get to wondering if you enjoy being depressed. Some people do. It's part of that insidious fallen nature we all have. Weird, huh? So my takeaway here is simply the remembrance of the proverb: "Two are better than one...". We may consider the rest of the proverb less applicable, but let's just worry about the truth of the need for REAL friendships. They don't happen overnight. When we deliberately build relationships, when we care about the needs of our friends...(and they can tell)...we will have woven the strands that the hosts of hell can't break. And Jesus is the best of the best in that circle. No matter how badly we have failed. No matter how ugly our thoughts and deeds might be, Jesus bends his ear and focuses his eyes on us as we speak to him. Be sure he's at the top of the Friend List. That's all for now. Shalom.