This is your life

Today (actually a few days ago), I was thinking about failure. I was thinking about how some of the most celebrated characters in film and literature history have been failures. Even non-fictional characters. But unlike most real people, fictional characters find some incredible redemption for thier failures. We are captivated (no props to the Eldreges) by the human struggle, the failure, and the redemption. We see ourselves in these characters and we believe, maybe we can atone for our sins, our failures, our mistakes. We see the imperfections, the struggles, and the failures in these we call heroes, in these we see as perfect, and we can identify, and we wish we could also have the ultimate redemption. After the major screw up with the girl we love, we wish we could chase after her and win her back. We wish we could avenge people who were wronged and we feel somehow responsible for it. We wish we could somehow mortify ourselves to pay for the damage and hurt we cause. But this isn't the movies, this is real life, the hurts we cause with thoughtless words and actions cut deep and wound in ways that singing, "I want to grow old with you" won't immeadiatly fix. Don't get me wrong. I believe in the beautiful and amazing redemption via Christ, but we still pay the consequences of our failures and sins, which most films don't portray. I think this is why i love films like American History X, The Godfather, The Life Aquatic, and American Beauty. They give the hope of redemption and change, but they don't gloss over the high and painful cost involved with redemption. The exciting and wonderful truth of reality in Christ is the God redeems us, pays the eternal price/consequence for our sin and failure. Even more amazing is that he can and does choose to use failures and people who have sinned to be further instruments of his redemptive mission of love and healing. He could've paid for my sin, and left me sitting on the sidelines for the rest of my life as a punishment for defiling myself with sin and being unuseable in his plans because of my past. But he doesn't, and that is amazing to me. He would be justified in further punishing me, at least it seems justifiable to me, but he doesn't, he loves me deeper and uses my brokenness as a witness to his own love, mercy, and forgiveness. This truth, that God uses messed up people for his glory and purposes was one of the starting points in my life to hearing God tell me about church ministry. When I first thought about it, I was so excited, the thoughts resonated with my very being, but i thought, "God can't use me after everything I've done or been through" and that depressed me. Imagine the joy in finding out that despite my failures, despite the damage I'd done to myself and others, God could still, and still wanted to use me as a vessel of his redemption on earth. What grace, what a priviledge. The story of redepmtion unfolding in my life and yours.