"Though they stumble..."
Psalm 37:23-25
“The Lord directs the steps of the godly.
He
delights in every detail of their lives.
Though they
stumble, they will never fall,
for
the Lord holds them by the hand.
Once I was
young, and now I am old.
Yet I
have never seen the godly abandoned
or
their children begging for bread.”
The
devil is constantly trying to remind me of when I’ve stumbled. Most of the time, it’s because I let him. I let him bring up old memories of stupid things I
said or did, or of silly, immature thoughts or feelings I had, because I don’t
take control of my thoughts. After a while, when all you think about is your
errors in life, you start to feel a little loco en la cabeza…
You worry about what people
think of you. You doubt your ability to
not mess up. You scold yourself and give yourself little
pep talks about how to get it right next time. Worst of all, you worry that if you mess it up
bad enough, you’re going to
ruin God’s plan… If you’re not careful,
it gets to the point where you’re imagining Direct TV commercials of your life inside your head… You know, the ones
where the guy makes a tiny mistake and wakes up in a roadside ditch, or gets
body slammed by a lowland gorilla, or ends up selling his hair to a wig shop because
he lost everything in Vegas. Haha! Just kidding. But you know what I mean…
But
guess what! God gave us a promise in His Word. He said that though we
stumble, we will never
fall! Why? Because He is holding us by
the hand, He’s directing our steps, and He delights in every detail of our lives. Just because you said that thing, or you
did that thing, or you thought that thing—that thing that makes you cringe
every time you remember it—doesn’t mean that you’re a lost cause, that you
can’t do it right next time.
The
New International Version translation of verse
23 says, “If the Lord delights in a
man’s way, he makes his steps firm.” Can I tell you that the Lord delights
in your way? He does. He delights in your
heart. He knows that you desire to please Him and that you don’t want to ruin
His plan… And He wants you to quit beating yourself up, to quit letting the
devil whisper those lies in your ear every time you have a free moment to
think.
So
are you ready for the challenge? Here it is. I challenge you to use those free,
quiet moments to dwell on Jesus instead.
Take your eyes off of yourself and point them toward Jesus. Think about His
faithfulness, His goodness, His grace… Because, 1) it will crush the devil, 2)
we’ve already established that what you did in the past doesn’t matter to Jesus
(And can I tell you a secret? You’re not the only one who has done stupid
things.), and 3) you will never run out of good things to think about about
Jesus. John 21:25 says, “Jesus did many other things as well. If
every one of them were written down, I
suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the
books that would be written.” Ahhhhh…
What a Savior!
Love,
Kristian