Tag: failure

Trusting God in the Little Things

I was planning a much better-developed post on this topic, but God kind of forced my hand.

I’ve been praying recently about the fact that I do crazy, radical things because I trust God. I consent to perpetual celibacy, I quit my job and live out of my car–you know, pretty much the usual for a successful, educated woman pushing thirty. And yet I’m super anxious and obsessive about stupid, unimportant matters: whether I might run out of gas before the next rest stop because I didn’t feel like stopping at the last one even though the light was already on; whether I’ll be able to find a parking spot downtown in time to make it to Mass early enough for it to count as Mass; whether the check that’s been following me around America will finally catch up with me in time to cover my bills.1

This is ridiculous! Why do I trust God with the salvation of the entire world but I don’t trust him with my calluses? Why am I willing to offer him hours in prayer every day but I just can’t give him the two minutes left in my holy hour because what if my host is waiting for me?

Seriously, it just feels pathetic, largely because it’s so irrational. I trust God with the creation, care, and salvation of every human soul, with the design of the genome, with the tiny little flashes of inspiration that lead to a life of faith. I trust him with my whole life–just none of the details of it.

So today in adoration, I made a list of things I trust God with:

  1. The happiness and salvation of everyone in the world.
  2. My vocation.
  3. My soul.
  4. My career.
  5. My heart.
  6. My life and health.
  7. My homelessness.2

That’s pretty BA, huh? I’m, like, practically a saint.

So then I made a list of the things I don’t trust God with:

  1. My car. (It might break down.)
  2. Traffic. (I might be late.)
  3. Other people’s opinion of me. (I care more than anybody ever should.)
  4. My success. (What if I never get any jobs?)
  5. Anything involving paperwork. (That stuff stresses me out!)
  6. My stuff. (I don’t have much, so if I mess it up, I’ll have to replace it and that’s really frustrating.)
  7. A place to stay. (I trust God to provide in general, but what if I can’t find someone to put me up next Thursday?)

And, like a good little Christian, I asked God to teach me to trust him. I told him I wanted him to be Lord over the details in my life, not just the big picture. I prayed to delight in his will3 and offered every moment of this day for the glory of his name and the salvation of souls.

And then I went to my friend’s mechanic because my brakes had suddenly started feeling squishy. Quick patch on the brake line, I thought, and we’re good to go.

Nope. $800 fix. Oh, and the part won’t be here till Thursday, so I have to stay in Mobile till then because my brakes will almost certainly go out completely if I do any more driving on them.4

I’m supposed to be at Ave Maria in Florida on Monday.

So, for those of you keeping track at home, that’s an expensive car repair (#1 and #6) that makes me miss speaking engagements (#4) and strands me at someone’s house (#3–what if they think I’m a burden? They absolutely don’t and I know that and they’re wonderful but what if??). Oh, and if I skip Ave, I don’t know where I’ll go before Indiana on the 23rd (#7).

So here’s all the wisdom I can muster on the cross I was handed on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross:

  • Don’t pray it if you don’t mean it.
  • Somehow, this will be exactly right.5

If I figure out this side of heaven what the silver lining to this is, I’ll let you know. Until then, I’ll enjoy an extended visit with dear friends and wonder why Megabus doesn’t go from Alabama to Florida. Feel free to throw some prayers my way, for miracles, resignation, or both.

  1. Notice that these are all travel-related. Because that’s pretty much all I do. [↩]
  2. You know, that he’ll take care of me even though I’m living out of my car and don’t have a real home. [↩]
  3. Ps 40:9 [↩]
  4. It’s the brake master cylinder–apparently that’s important. And I think it’s all legit because it was a Firestone, so he’s got no real incentive to mess with me, especially since he spent 45 minutes on the phone trying to get the part quicker. He managed to get a promise of “Monday or Tuesday.” I’m not optimistic. [↩]
  5. Rom 8:28 [↩]

The God of Failure

I hate failure.  I know, I know, everybody does, but I’m one of those type A folk who would rather be set on fire than get a B on a test.  I still feel the need to justify the C that I got on a Scarlet Letter test in 7th grade even though I hadn’t read the book.*   There’s something about failing that makes me burn with shame.  I lose sleep.  I’m honestly surprised I haven’t given myself an ulcer yet. And the thing is, I started life off pretty well. As long as success was about school and not souls, I did well. I achieved and achieved and achieved and was quite pleased with myself all through my academic career.

And then, apparently, the Lord decided that I was better than that.  And the failure began.

It was little things at first, things that didn’t overshadow the good I felt I was doing.  Students who hated me, friendships cut off; even leaving the convent after I had told everyone I’d be there forever didn’t seem too bad in the face of all the ways I’d succeeded.  Sure, there were failures, but overall I felt I was changing the world and winning souls for Christ.

Lately, though, it hasn’t been that easy.  Failure these days isn’t occasional, it’s daily.  Every day, some kid I’ve poured my life out for tells me my class is a waste of time.  Or makes really bad choices and lies to me about it.  Or listens to every word I say and then throws his life away at some party.  And there’s nothing I can do.

So my motto recently has been Mother Teresa’s: God has not called us to be successful, he has called us to be faithful.

Because the Christian life is not about success.  I suppose I should have figured this out the first time I noticed that the guy everyone was talking about was hanging dead on the wall.  Here I am worshiping a man who was executed naked while almost nobody looked on, and somehow I thought my life was going to look different?

When you follow a crucified Lord, you will be a failure.  You will fail at work because you refuse to compromise integrity.  You will fail in your pursuit of holiness because you are fallen.  And, as I have learned to my chagrin, you will fail in your service to the kingdom because it’s not about you.

This summer, mired in self-pity because I’m a total failure, I found myself listening to yet another homily on the Parable of the Sower (Mt 13:1-23 for anyone following along at home—does anyone else feel as though that reading comes up ten times a year?).  This time, though, Father wasn’t talking about what kind of soil we are.  He focused on God’s prodigality.  God doesn’t choose only fertile ground; he sows his seed everywhere on the off chance that it will take root.  He’s not jealous of his grace but lavishes it on even the most unwelcoming hearts.

God offers his life to every punk kid there is—even to me, self-obsessed as I am.  And when he asked me to take up my cross, he asked me to be crucified along with him.  Sitting in the comfort of my first world home, it seems it would be easy enough to suffer martyrdom (although I’m sure I’d feel differently when faced with the opportunity) or even to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake.  But this pathetic daily failure?  This inability to meet deadlines or love well or change hearts?  That’s a cross.

The central paradox of Christianity, though, is precisely this: it is our greatest defeats that are our greatest victories.  We lose all we have to be filled with the riches of the kingdom.  We mourn and are comforted.  We die to rise again.

Jesus failed—again and again and again.  He lost his disciples because he was too extreme (cannibalism—John 6).  He fell three times under his cross.  He couldn’t even keep those he loved most from falling into grave sin.  He is fully God and fully man, like us in all things but sin.  Like us especially in failure.

But Jesus’ defeat was victory specifically because it was redemptive.  And that’s what he’s called me to as well—a life of failure embraced for the salvation of souls.  He’s asking me to lavish myself on barren soil, to offer myself again and again to be crucified by those whose salvation I desire more than anything else.  And when, in the throes of passionate prayer, I offer my life to him as a sacrifice for souls, he takes it gladly.

(Seriously, though, you have to be careful what you pray for.  I once told God I’d do anything if he’d make my students holy.  I woke up the next morning with my eye swollen shut and then broke my tooth in half.

I’m warning you–if you follow Jesus, he might make you really ugly.

A month later, I prayed the same prayer, and again he took me at my word.  I walked into my apartment to discover green mold growing on everything I own.  Don’t tell God you’re willing to suffer for something if you’re not prepared to scrub cinder blocks for hours on end.)

And his promise is this: “In the world you will have trouble, but take courage; I have conquered the world.”  Not “you will conquer the world,” but “I have conquered the world.  The promise is that I will suffer.  And I will fail.  And as my life draws to a close, I may look back and see nothing gained.  But Christ has conquered the world.  And my life of failure will bear fruit, whether I see it or not.

We are an Easter people living in a Good Friday world.  We fall and we fall and we fall beneath our crosses.  But still we rise because the promise of the empty tomb leads us on.  So let’s ignore success and failure and broken teeth and broken hearts.  Let’s plant in whatever soil we find and forget about looking for fruit.  Let’s embrace our crosses and rejoice in defeat.  Because when we go before God, unemployment and divorce and teenage drama and middle school exams and pimples and even Bush Push 2005 will count for nothing.  We will realize, with Graham Greene’s whiskey priest, “that at the end, there was only one thing that counted: to be a saint.”

Let’s begin.

 

 

 

*But really, what teacher has a kid take a make-up test in a room filled with socializing kids??  I was so distracted I didn’t even finish!