Falling Down and Getting Up

“The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

Days of triumph will always be unforgettable moments of joy. Times when we can say to ourselves, “I have reached my goals and made things happen,” will always be a season to celebrate and mark our personal victories in style.

However, not all days are like that. All of us, in some way or another, have experienced how it is to fail and fall.

While some are able to recover from a periodic fall, unfortunately not everybody has the built-in resilience to stand up and move on. We have heard of cases of corporate executives killing themselves after a major business fiasco. And we have also heard of accounts of career-oriented people getting depressed on a long-term basis after company redundancies. And there are people who are still wallowing in despair for months — even years — on end after relationship breakdowns. It is a tough world out there. Unfortunately, many don’t make it and are forever scarred.

If there is one thing we know, it is this: failure is a bitter pill which is hard to swallow. And for those who feel they have faced — or have lived — a life of failure, there are just two choices: to feel miserable till the end, or to learn from the experience and strive to move on. The first option involves clinging to the past and analyzing all the what-could-have-beens. The second one entails rising from the ashes and turning the situation around for the better. Option two, no doubt, is the best choice. It allows brokenness to make someone into a stronger person who aims nothing but a purpose-filled life.

The Bible is filled with stories of heroes who had experienced major ups and downs. The prophet Elijah, for example, hid in a cave for many days after his remarkable victory against the false prophets on Mount Carmel, extremely discouraged (I Kings 19:4). Later on, we would read that he recovered from this severe depression and did what God called him to do as a fearless prophet.

It is never too late to start over. For that, we can always turn to the one true God, the restorer of all good things. We can begin our journey back to full restoration by believing in Him who is the only source of hope that lasts and bears fruit. Psalm 130:7 reads: “Put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with Him is full redemption.”

God is not apathetic. He deeply knows the pain and suffering of people and sincerely wants “to bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom to the captives, and release the prisoners from darkness” (Isaiah 61:1). He is more than willing to grant His comfort and bestow His favor to those who seek. He desires to give mankind only good things: “to bestow a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61: 2-3).

Why hold on to misery when you can have fullness of joy? Why replay scenes of past failures when you can win your battles now? Why stay in the pit of despair when you can climb out of the pit and run the race God laid out for you to win?

When you find yourself stuck in a situation that seems hopeless, just look up. We can always rely on God’s streams of mercy to pull us through.