Holey His

I was thinking this week about failure – personal, professional, just pick a domain – and, in typically morose fashion, began to wallow in a view of myself as nothing but a collection of empty holes, a substance-less interstitial tissue. Hardly healthy.

Then I remembered thinking once long ago "I am NOT the sum of all my failures." Initially a comforting thought. But if holes is what I am NOT, what indeed AM I? Is this comfort in actuality some kind of psychological stowaway, hidden somewhere inside the vague hope that maybe there IS some redeeming element, something worthwhile, some measure of intrinsic value in me, even apart from God?

Thoughts of Grace's teaching on Romans flow thru my mind; if one thing is clear it's that there is no excuse, no cause for boasting, no justification whatsover before God – apart from Him and His intervention I am irrevocably unredeemable.

So the niggling suspicion that I am a collection of empty holes turns out to be, in fact, closer to the truth – except for one thing; it does not end there: the holes are voids, hollow places to be filled by the grace of God. Then let the holes be deep and cavernous and gaping – and let God pour into them, to outrageous overflowing, all the grace that He can muster. Then it will be true that I am not the sum of all my failures – for I am failure met by the unmerited favor of God, and He has made me a vessel of His relentless, unfathomable and incalculable grace that can fill all the holes in me. To Him be all glory and honor.