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John Hembree

An Everyday Expression of Hope and Its Potential

An Everyday Expression of Hope 

What You Call Failure…

August 2, 2012 by John Hembree Leave a Comment

As I was on my way to an appointment this morning I was listening to a CD by Selah and the hymn, There Is A Fountain. Below is a link to the song with such powerful lyrics.

I was overtaken on Fairburn Road in Atlanta, Georgia, by God’s presence as I have not felt in some time. “Sinners plunge beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”

You do not have to have grown up in church to understand a simple outpouring of God’s love.

Allow me to back up a moment, mixed in with all this is Luke 18:13, where Christ is teaching his followers we can not trust in ourselves or view others with contempt.

Go read this sometime. What a contrast of the person which resides within each of us…judgmental, arrogant and without mercy.

The other is the person I relate to, a man who distances himself from others, will not even look up to the heavens, beats his chest and says, “God be merciful to me, the sinner.”

That’s me, the sinner.

Yet, for some reason, God wrapped him arms around me this morning and said, “What you call failure, I call progress. What you call the end, I call it merely the beginning. What you say is weakness, is actually the realization that you can fail by yourself, I can’t help you with that, but, I can restore your faith, your trust and your hope.” (Now, if you go back and read that again, and this time imagine Morgan Freeman’s voice as God, it will be much better.)

There are so many people, all of us really, that is dying to understand God’s capacity to love us fully, completely and without any reservation.

I have failed and will fail again and again. As you will.

Just remember, what you call failure, God call’s progress.

As I was on my way to an appointment this morning I was listening to a CD by Selah and the hymn There Is A Fountain.  Below is a link to the song with such powerful lyrics.

I was overtaken on Fairburn Road in Atlanta, Georgia, by God’s presence as I have not felt in some time.  “Sinners plunge beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”

You do not have to have grown up in church to understand a simple outpouring of God’s love.

Allow me to back up a moment, mixed in with all this is Luke 18:13, where Christ is teaching his followers we can not trust in ourselves or view others with contempt.

Go read this sometime.  What a contrast of the person which resides within each of us…judgmental, arrogant and without mercy.

The other is the person I relate to, a man who distances himself from others, will not even look up to the heavens, beats his chest and says, “God be merciful to me, the sinner.”

That’s me, the sinner.

Yet, for some reason, God wrapped him arms around me this morning and said, “What you call failure, I call progress.  What you call the end, I call it merely the beginning.  What you say is weakness, is actually the realization that you can fail by yourself, I can’t help you with that, but, I can restore your faith, your trust and your hope.”  (Now, if you go back and read that again, and this time imagine Morgan Freeman’s voice as God, it will be much better.)

There are so many people, all of us really, that is dying to understand God’s capacity to love us fully, completely and without any reservation.

I have failed and will fail again and again.  As you will.

Just remember, what you call failure, God calls progress.

JHH

 

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