If You Fall, Get Up
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” ~ The Citizen of the World, Or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friends in the Country, by Dr. Goldsmith
I was having a discussion with a spiritual director long ago and we were talking about sin and the struggle that every Christian faces because it seems that we fall all the time. My spiritual director told me that he had come to be convinced that God, at our judgment, never counted the number of times that we fell when we were alive. The only thing that mattered to God, he said, was the number of times that we got back up. If the number of times that we got back up matched the number of times that we fell, we had it made because that was our proof to God that we desired to be with Him.
I thought about Fr. Tim when I found today’s quote. It was almost as if Tim were speaking again. “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Too many people fail to see this simple equation. They focus too much on the fall rather than on getting up and trying again. They may develop the mindset that it does no good to get up because all we will do is fall.
If we allow ourselves to wallow in our failings, we will never do what we are called to do. We fall because our human nature is easily sidetracked. We fall because the temptations of the world look better than the promise of the Lord because the temptations of the world promise immediate gratification.
That is one we thing learn about ourselves from a very early age. We do not like to wait. If there is a choice between having something immediately or waiting a long time to get something, we will almost always go for the immediate.
Our faith lives are similar to the stock market. We will rise and we will fall. However, if we are going to play the stock market, we have to be in it for the long term. The same holds for our faith lives. We will have bumpy days and we will have good days.
We cannot allow any one day to determine our disposition because we are in it for the long term. Hold firm to the faith God has given to you. Nurture it. Cultivate it. You might not see immediate results but, if you hold firm, you will see eternal results at the end of your days.
FAITH ACTION: Have you been reluctant to live the faith as completely as you can because you keep falling? Get up and try again today.