IN THE FACE OF DEFEAT

 Recently I heard an excellent sermon on feeling defeat.  Never been there?  HOLD ON---you are in for a BIG FALL!  Surely we all have felt and faced the eye of defeat.  Truth be told, lately I have been struggling with this feeling.  At some point, we all fall short of our goals-or expectations as we have been talking over lately.  

My mindless chatter television binge lately has been "Young Sheldon".  Sheldon---a genius- had never tasted the agony of defeat.  His overload of  confidence takes a nose dive when the launch of a data  base for grants falls flat when no one signs up for the service.  The episode did a good job of describing all the uncharted waters Sheldon had to tread with this first defeat which was not only a defeat but a HUGE defeat.

Most of us are not under the illusion that we will never suffer defeat.  As I watched this episode, it occurred to me our skin begins to thicken with repeated defeats.  While we do not spiral to the bottom of the pit as Sheldon did, we do still feel the agony of defeat and can become despondent.

The sermon gave excellent points on the reasons why we might feel defeat-

WHEN WE FALL SHORT OF OUR ASPIRATIONS

WHEN WE FEEL GOD DOES NOT WANT TO INTERACT WITH US (UNANSWERED PRAYERS-SEEMINGLY DEAD SILENCE FROM GOD)

Sheldon's mentor, John Sturgis (another genius and his professor) sang Sheldon an old song with these lyrics, 

"Pick yourself up,

Take a deep breath,

Dust yourself off

And start all over again"

For all you who know this cute ditty--your welcome for it rolling around in your head all day today.  Excellent advice--but the sermon warned us of the possibility we can slide back into old habits and embrace the defeat as final.  We all know tomorrow is another day and we have the choice of trying again---or giving up.

We were reminded that Jesus gives us infinite chances and His mercies are new every morning.  He will be faithful no matter how defeated we feel.  He wants us to step into our defeat and have faith there is more good to come --even after suffering defeat.  Satan can use defeats and shake us up---Jesus will faithfully stand by our side as we pick ourselves us, take a deep breath, dust ourselves off and start all over again.  Praise God for the blessing of infinite chances.

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

His mercies never come to an end'

they are new every morning'

great is Your faithfulness."

Lamentations 3:23