Logan's Flipping Fail

Micah 7:8
"Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.

My oldest son Logan has an impressive talent, he can stand flat on his feet and do a full back flip. He began learning this flipping ability at age seven.  I was inside the house while he was playing on the swing-set outside, I heard him call out, “Mom come watch me”. I stuck my head out the screen door as he climbed to the top of the swing-set.  I thought he was going to show me how he could cross the monkey bars.  Instead, before I could stop him, he did a front flip about 5 feet off the ground landing flat on his back.  I ran over to discover he had knocked the wind out of himself.  This was a new experience for him, and he looked at me with wide eyed terror as he squeaked out, “Am I going to die?”.

Logan’s flipping failure, and his ability now reminds me of
Micah 7:8 (NIV) “Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light." When we trust Jesus as our Savior we become children of God (1John 3:1). We can never be bad enough to lose our status, or good enough to earn it. It is by God’s grace and mercy through the death and resurrection of Jesus that we belong to Him for eternity  (John 3:16, Romans 6:4-5). 

But learning to follow Jesus can be painful and there are times when our sin will stagger us and leave us feeling like we got the wind knocked out of us so to speak.  Honestly, as women, wives and/or mothers there are things we do that bring guilt and shame. Things like losing my temper with my kids because we are running late for an appointment because I was on FaceBook and lost track of time. Or treating my husband with disrespect when he is standing with the fridge door open and asks “where is the mustard?”, as I spot it from 10 feet away. Or when I am  driving down the road with my kids in the backseat, singing my favorite praise song at the top of my lungs and a guy pulls out in front of me and I yell “watch what your doing jerk” as I speed past and cut him off. Yup there I am flat on my back! 

Micah 7:9 goes on to say that “because I have sinned against the Lord I will endure his wrath.” But this is great news because Romans 8:1 says “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The enemy wants to fool us into believing that because of our sin we are doomed to be failures. He whispers all kinds of things like “you’re a terrible mother”, or  “I can’t believe you call yourself a follower of Christ when you act like that." He does this to keep us flat on our backs. 

Yes, God does not take sin lightly, He hates it and He wants His children to live free from sin, so He will discipline us. But even this is good because Hebrews 12:5-11 tells us “the Lord disciplines those he loves” because we are his children and He wants to teach us to avoid the sin that weighs us down. 

As a 7 year old boy, Logan laid on the ground barely able to breath after his  failure. But he did not stay there, he got up and kept trying (although it was many years later before he tried it from that height again). Today it is one of his favorite tricks! I think that is what the Lord wants us to do in our failure, he wants us to get up and say, because of Jesus “Do not gloat over me my enemy, for though I have fallen” all praise and glory to God, “I Will Rise!”

Author

Julie Fuller