Since living in Indy, I have been challenged extremely by what grace really looks like in my life. I have grown to understand that there is such a thing as grace, but it gets a little blurry when I continue to fall into the same rut. As a human I know that I will fail and that there is grace, but even so I am not always convinced by the concept.
I have always been mocked by my friends about the way that I challenge myself on small things. I challenge myself in illogical ways that will only bring me to my failure. I don't start small and build up, but instead I go to the extreme. This has been something that I have always done mainly because I feel that if I don't set the bar too high I won't actually try to accomplish it. It's not a challenge if the bar isn't high enough. This issue of mine has seemed to seep through on a much larger scale over the years, however. It's no longer a challenge of not saying a specific phrase for a month or not being sarcastic for a day, but has transferred into personal goals of building my character.
This idea of unrealistic challenges is not something that I would say is necessarily a bad thing, but it has to be handled properly when dealing with real life. I am a person who wants to continually challenge who I am because I know that there is always room for growth. If I am not growing and becoming more like my creator, then I am clearly not living out the life I am supposed to. I see these flaws in myself that I need to fix and then I attempt to do so. I make unrealistic challenges to myself because I have conditioned my mind to only think in that way. After this, I fall short and feel like a complete failure. With that failure comes confusion, pain, and the challenge of understanding grace.
With humanity comes failure and I am fully aware of that, but it is hard to hear truth within failure. Any person who grew up in a church that spoke the true Gospel knows that we all fall short and God gives us grace. However, knowing is nothing without understanding. Grace is a beautiful thing once we learn how to let it cover us and then to grow from it, but it's not always that easy. For me, failure paralyzes me and all I can believe are the lies thrown my way. I can't move on and move forward because I allow myself to believe that I do not deserve the grace that is given to me. I allow room for conviction, but no room for grace and healing.
The beautiful thing about God is that even in our greatest disbeliefs, he doesn't give up on us. The reality of the matter is that I am human and I am going to fail. I am going to make the same promises and say that I will change, but I know that I will fall short sometimes. Even in those failures, I know that God is still there and he hasn't given up. His grace will continue to pour out on me, but it is what I decide to do with the grace that is poured on me. I can either move forward and let it change me or I can continue to be in this contentment of failure. God's pursuing me on this and though I am scared, I am also excited to see where it goes.
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