On Falling Down
To me, the most amazing event in all of sports is not the Superbowl or pitching a perfect game. The most amazing event is the high jump. In a world class high jump, the competitor runs up and jumps over a bar that is higher than the top of the front door of your house. I just don’t understand how that is possible. It is not like he grabs it and pulls himself over it, he completely jumps over it. In 1993 one man jumped over a bar that was over eight feet high! That means he could jump over your ceiling. That is amazing.
If that is an amazing feat, one of the most amazing facts is that the high jump always ends in failure. They keep raising the bar until the competitor can not jump it anymore. He walks away with the bar on the ground and he has failed.
I’m glad God doesn’t do me like that. I’m glad he doesn’t keep changing the bar to make me fail. God is on my side. As a Christian, we keep trying until we succeed. We do fail. We fall down, but we keep getting up again and again. Finally we get up one more time than we have fallen down.
The wise man said, “For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again,
but the wicked are brought down by calamity.” (Prov 24:16). God does not expect perfection from us. He expects us to keep on trying. He knows we will fall down. He expects us to get up again. When we do fall down, the real test of Christianity begins. If we get up and try again, we are righteous. If we fall and quit trying, if we just lay there in our failure, then we have failed the righteousness test.
Dear Brother or Sister, have you failed? Have you stumbled? Have you fallen down? Get up again. In Biblical literature the number seven is usually not a literally number, but rather stands for a number that means “an unlimited number of times.” God is really saying to us, “As many times as you fall down, a righteous person will get up again.”
It is not how many times you fall that counts. It is how many times you get up that makes the difference.
Lonnie Davis
Harvard scholar Karen L. King announced the discovery of the papyrus which causes some people to think that Jesus had a wife! The religious and secular world seems excited about this new discovery. This caused me to wonder what if Jesus did have a wife. Three observations seem in order:
1. It is not a sin if Jesus did have a wife. It would not change anything about His life. He was fully human and fully God.
2. If he were married then the Scriptures tell us nothing about it. The early Christians never mentioned it. The apostles never mentioned it. The Bible does not say He had a wife. We are on very solid ground when we accept the tradition that he was never married.
At first this self-centered judge ignored her, but her persistence finally paid off. The judge thought, “Because this widow keeps bothers me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming.” (18:4-5).
This seems like an odd story from Jesus. Why would Jesus tell such a story? It is not really about taking our troubles to a worldly judge, but about our taking our troubles to our heavenly Judge.
we know this because the story ends with Jesus saying, “Listen to what hte unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?” (Luke 18:6-7)
Jesus is saying that we ought to pray God answers. Too many times Christians claim to have prayed, but what they we really mean is “I mentioned it in prayer.” When God doesn’t answer after the first prayer we give up and say, “Prayer does not work.”
When you have trouble, pray. When you have needs, pray. When your friend or loved one has a need, pray. When you have prayed, pray again. When you get no apparent answer pray and pray again. Never give up prayer. It is our only hope.
Perhaps God is waiting till we persist in prayer before he gives us the answer.
Lonnie Davis