The Hope That Saves

What to do when you keep falling.

Falling into sin can be absolutely crushing. Once you’ve seen the ugliness of sin and experienced the love and mercy of God, it’s impossible to not feel guilty and ashamed after we betray Him again.

Every sin is a lash in Christ’s back. Every betrayal a hammer blow on the nails that pierce His precious hands.

We participate in His passion willingly, every time we fall.

Maybe initially we did this out of ignorance, failing to see the hellish darkness of sin, and thus we could avoid all feelings of guilt after every commission.

But now it’s different. Now we know what we are doing. Now, the Holy Spirit has shown us both the pain our sin begets, and the unending love and mercy of the Savior whom we so readily betray.

We have seen the contrast between heaven and hell, and we can’t avoid feeling pain and guilt after all those times we’re too weak to choose the difficult light over the alluring darkness.

We can’t avoid feeling dirty and ashamed when we wake up to realize we’ve chosen to stab God in the back, again and again, even after all this time, even after we promised —once more— to be faithful to Him forever.

And while a measure of guilt is prudent, for it means that we love God more than we love our sin, and it shows a sincere heart that wants to be purified, we would be wise to remember that sin, while evil, dark and ugly, is not the final enemy.

The final enemy is despair. The final enemy is hopelessness.

The final enemy is believing your sin cannot be overcome.

Christ solved the problem of sin. He gave Himself up so we wouldn’t be slaves to it. All we need to do is believe that, because when we do, we’ll return to Him after we sin, when we sin, before we sin.

We will look at His cross and ask Him to turn our temptations into grace.

As long as you keep hoping and keep trusting God’s mercy, you’ll come back to Him and He’ll welcome you with open arms. But when you lose all hope, when you think your efforts are worthless, when you believe and accept in your heart that you are too wretched to be forgiven, that’s when you’ll quit the race and condemn yourself.

The great sinner who hopes, who perseveres, who repents, and who stubbornly returns to Christ will find salvation.

God’s mercy is always bigger than your sin.

Please don’t give up. Please don’t stop trying. Please don’t lose hope.

Persevere until the end.

God is with you, and He wants nothing more than for you to join Him in eternity.

Prayer

Lord, thank You for Your infinite mercy. Thank You for loving me, forgiving me, and strengthening me at the hour of temptation.

I’m sorry for my failures.
I’m sorry for my sins.

I surrender my heart to You, purify and soften it, free it from the disordered attachments that I’ve learnt to love more than You.

Please grant me the graces required to keep hoping after I have failed, to keep trying when I think my efforts are futile, to keep returning to You when guilt tries to get me to hide.

Make me a testimony of the transformative power of Your love,

Amen

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
— 2 Timothy 4:7

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