The worries escalate, moment by moment. This is not how I wanted things to turn out. I feel a victim of my own choices, errors I can’t change. I wonder what God can do with what I’ve done.
I’m not really sure if I believe His recreating power can trump the mess I’ve made. It seems He’ll have to prove to me what He can do.
Maybe you find yourself in the same place today. You don’t know what you’re going to do with imperfections and transgressions that cloud your thinking with doom and threaten your faith with awful fantasies of condemnation.
May I encourage you that where your enemy is relentless in laser-beaming your focus on yourself, your Savior is all about lifting your gaze to Himself. He knows that you sin and make mistakes–none of that surprises Him–but His love is never trapped by the web of your misdemeanors.
Rather, He wants you to understand that He means for you to be caught up in the web of His love–a web so strong that nothing can penetrate it or cause it to let go of you. In this web you are safe, you can be still. But, what is even more wonderful than this: You can trust that the One whose love supports you is the One who presses in upon your heart, conforming it in every way into the image of Himself.
There is victory even in the bleakest of moments because victory doesn’t depend on you. All that is necessary is for you to depend on the One who holds the title deed to every victory from the cross to eternity. Will you trust Him today?
In what areas of your heart do you waver in trust? Where are you convinced that your sin is too big for God to recover the loss?
At Home with God 
2 responses to “If I can’t trust God with my mistakes, I can’t trust Him with anything”
Well said, Elaine.
I think I mostly struggle with believing that my sin requires a higher degree of consequence than it does for others. By this I mean that it doesn’t feel like any of my sin escapes a giant fallout, whereas I see the mercy placed on the lives of others, and it’s hard not to covet when He deals with me differently.
Of course, this is to forget that He is sovereign and so intricately interested in my life that by grace He doesn’t allow me to stray into something less than consecrated. Does it feel unjust or unfair at times? Does it feel as if my sin is under the microscope? Perhaps. But who am I to determine whether God would call me to a greater degree of holiness than the believer that mercifully lives in ignorance of His greater plan?
In this way, I identify with Moses. I’m particularly fearful of Numbers 20:1-13, because it is completely within God’s nature to harshly discipline those that sin in spiritual position to honor or dishonor Him, as if more intimate we grow in Him, the greater despair in our sin. But if I was to consider my other relationships, this only makes sense. To be grieved by someone with little regard for me hurts little; suffering at the hands of one that loves me deeply is much worse. Why wouldn’t He graciously convict my heart all the more? Perhaps I should be blessed by the lengths He has gone to value our relationship and its purity. Even where my sin would have me run from His fold, He continually overwhelms me with loving reproach that demonstrates how much He wants me.
Mmm…I so appreciate you carrying out this thought. I didn’t think about the standards being higher the closer your relationship with God is. It makes things make so much more sense. I also think it’s interesting how you call both God’s leniency and His discipline mercy. It’s a lot to comprehend, but I pray we both learn to want that second mercy more and more.