05.16.08

Humility by Failure

Posted in Uncategorized at 2:19 pm by Perry

I got my first ever C in college. I am a senior in the last three weeks of my final quarter of my college career and I got my first ever C in college and I am rejoicing in the goodness of God.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have often valued schools more then most anything in my life. I study more hours, read more books and do more homework then just about anyone in hopes of maintaining that perfect GPA and boasting (internally, at least) in my power and wisdom to score well on an exam. I can not deny that I have at many times invested more sweat and tears in my performance in school then I have on searching to know God more and bringing the lost to a knowledge of Him.

And here I am, three weeks away from finishing my degree with a perfect 4.0 GPA and I get my first C on an exam. At this point, any hope of keeping that perfect performance record is lost and I find my heart overwhelmed with joy; not because the stress of maintaining that perfection is lost but because I am evidenced in my imperfection.

How fickle to base a measure of my power and wisdom as something so insignificant as a grade in college and I show my arrogance before God by holding to this past accomplishment as being of my own working and for my own glory. I know that I can endure the loss of all things as trivial as a grade in a class to the loss of my life because God is glorious and He is worthy of all that I have. He is glorious and worthy because I am imperfect and when I began to deceive myself that I am anything but wretched dry bones, he reminds me of my weakness and comforts me with His strength.

I praise God that He is good. I praise God that I can do nothing. I praise God that when I seek to boast in things that He gifts me with, His love shows me that I can do nothing apart from Him and that my joy both begins in Him and finds its consummation in knowing and serving Him alone.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

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