Trying to do Better

For those of you who are still checking in on this blog- thank you. I want to apologize for my inconsistancy in posting to this blog with a message of trying to do better. I have often thought of this phrase and how some dislike it. Often when we have made mistakes people want from us an assurance that we will never ever do that again. I never do that. I am persuaded that it is dishonest and misleading. There are things that sometimes we just mess up and do again. All we can ever do is try to do better the next time and try to be better going forward.

Children of God need to face this same message. When we make mistakes we need not try to hold ourselves to standards that may be impossible to keep that instead of helping us actually hinder our spiritual growth and development.

Let me give you an example. Let's say that you have a problem with bad language and you make the statement I am never going to say those words again. You begin doing very well with your new found statement and purpose to follow God and put away vile language. Then you hit your hand with a hammer and out slips a bad word. You also find that when your very frustrated that you tend to let these words come out. After a while you begin down the path of logic that "they are just words" and "everyone makes mistakes", "don't judge me" and so on because you have been trying so hard but cannot keep the high bar that you set for yourself when you said never again. Instead of drawing closer to God with your desire to be pure and undefiled from bad language you have instead become disheartened and begin to make distance between yourself and God.

A more realistic approach for us is to say I am going to try to put these behind me and everyday that I do I will thank God for His help and His patience with me. When you slip or make a mistake 1 John 1 says that if we are faithful to confess our mistakes God is faithful to forgive us. Now without this enormous burden you instead have freedom in Christ from your sins and the strength that God supplies to fight each battle one at a time and allow your personality and vocabulary to change over time to get to a point when those words you always struggled with don't seem to come to mind.

As I said I will try and be better. With God's help we all should

MPE