"You can only see what you're prepared to see"
Our Pastor said as he stood at the pulpit preaching the word of God. I couldn't agree more.
The decision to perceive things is always up to us. Just like how there are two ways to look into this hourglass; you can either see the upper part of the hourglass losing its sands, or you can see the lower part of the hourglass gaining sands. Both are correct, it's okay to lose because oftentimes, losing is gaining. Cliché as it may sound but it definitely is true.
Throughout the humble 22 years that I got to live my life, I realized, that failures are almost like this hourglass. Whenever we fail it may feel embarrassing, confusing, and scary because it makes you feel like you've lost something, when in fact, if we learn to look at the bigger picture, we are really gaining more than what we're losing.
You see, it's okay to lose, it's okay to fail, and there are definitely days wherein we fall short of our expectations, dreams, or even the very call that God has for us. And yet it takes a failure for God to work His redemptive power.
Looking back at Adam and Eve, had they not sinned against God, then we would never have had the chance to see the extent of God's grace, mercy, and love. It is in our shortcomings that we see our weakness and desperate need of God. Losing, to me then, is a reminder that I am in need of God and am perpetually poor in spirit.
Let's face it! Life is not easy, it never was and it never will. There will be days when you feel like you're on cloud 9 and that everything is in harmony. The sun is up, the breeze is cool, people are smiling and pleasant towards you and it feels like everything is just going your way. You know exactly what to do and how to respond to situations. Then there will be days when nothing seems right, and no matter how much you tell yourself that "everything is going to be alright", it just doesn't appeal. And for some reason, there are bumps all over the road and you just cannot avoid hitting them. Lastly, there are those days when you just feel like giving up without giving a fight, you are ready to throw a white towel and be done with life.
Little did we know or notice, that the pits that we were in were lighthouses. Because in every downfall, we get to see the part of us that needs to be changed, the part that needs to be surrendered to God, and most importantly, the parts of us that need to die. So you get back up and get to try again, better and with more wisdom this time.
There are no assurances that the next battle will be won but we strive, we press on so that we can die a little to ourselves and so that a little of Christ is formed within. And we wander through life with the same excruciating process, I mean, how can dying to self be easy right? But it's fine because every morning you wake up and know that you are better than you were yesterday, that you are no longer the same person that you were before. It is in our undoing that God is doing something. I have come to understand that sometimes God allows us to lose some battles so that we can win the war.
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