Why is it when I stumble, or take a fall I end up feeling like I’ve let God down? His word says, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.” –Jeremiah 1:5
God’s word tells me I’m no surprise. Nor are my choices. Good or bad. The idea that He knows when (not if) I’m going to stumble and still loves me boggles my mind. Thus His admonition, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. –Isaiah 55:8
When I make those poor choices, and I’m deeply conflicted, I find myself empathizing with Paul. “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” –Romans 7:15–25