Falling Off the Wagon

Falling off the wagon of good intentions is a gradual event for me. It’s one tiny precedent setting justification after another that culminates in a long slide down until you don’t even realize you’re on the side of the road with no wagon in sight. Maybe that’s what people mean by the slippery slope. I suppose technically I didn’t completely fall off the wagon this time around. I still had my good intentions, and if I was to be graded on each goal I was probably somewhere between 50% and 80%. But I could feel myself sliding faster and faster. I was on the wagon about as much as a water skier is on the boat. Or like that girl in the old western movies who falls off her horse but her foot is still in the stirrup and the horse gets spooked and she gets dragged and bumped along in a cloud of dust. That was me. Still going along with the program, but not really.



I remember writing one time that I could understand why the Pharisees were sooo uptight and rigid about following everything to the letter of the Law. The Israelites had messed up so many times and been exiled and redeemed and reminded of God’s faithfulness only to go back to their idolatrous ways. It’s easy for me to imagine the frustration of looking at a cycle that you cannot shake, regardless of your good intentions, regardless of how desperately you want to be done with it, regardless of how you long to BE. BETTER. I can see how the tendency of the leadership, in their desire to do right and never go back, would be to overcompensate and try to stop the cycle by trying to control the situation with strict rules and regulations. Rules are easy. They make things black and white and universal. And they make you safe. Safe from yourself and safe from the influence of others. Better safe than sorry right?



But rules are not the answer. They weren’t the answer for the Pharisees and they aren’t the answer for me. So I found myself in a frustrating place. I knew I was being disobedient and defiant (yet again!). And I when I wasn’t being those things I was resigned and grumbling and immature. In the middle of this, I discovered some old journals where I was talking about the same issues. I was talking about how I longed for self control/self discipline and yet I managed to justify myself out of my own desires. Over and over in my journals I found the same themes. (Probably because the only times I actually journal are when I’m in the upswing of good intentions, but that’s beside the point). But there it was, on paper, in my handwriting (which, by the way, has had its own evolution…) and I was heartbroken by my own continued sin. But that emotion passed. And I still didn’t know what to do. I kept grumbling and doing the bare minimum I figured I could get away with and I felt very little response from God of how to FIX this. Or at least know what my part was. Finally, I heard a response. When I asked, what do I DO? He immediately said, “Go and sin no more.” I stewed on this. I’m still stewing on it. I wonder what it was like for Mary when he told her the same thing. Was it really that easy? Or was she more like Hosea’s Gomer who returned again and again to her old prostituting ways? How does one simply stop sinning?



A week or two later, I’m getting my butt kicked on this one pwog (my new word for powerwalking and jogging) and I feel Jesus pwogging beside me. He’s telling me he’s proud of me, run as far as that light pole, etc...really encouraging stuff.  Then he said, “See, I’m doing a new thing.” I finished my pwog and went to look that up, because I knew I had heard it before. It comes from Isaiah 43. God is talking about rescuing his people. He reminds them of what he’s done in the past and how he will provide in the future. He says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” As I continued to read into the next chapter he talks about He has had a long history of provision and faithfulness and Israel has had a long history of idolatry and unfaithfulness. Then he talks about the guy who makes the idols. He talks about how he goes out and cuts a tree – a tree he didn’t water or provide the energy for its growth. Then he uses half of it to cook his dinner and to keep him warm and the other half he uses to make an idol and then bows down to it and hopes it’ll save him...this thing he’s made and manipulated for his own use. Then he says, “Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?” At this point I’m in tears because I feel like I can identify with this man so much.  But then I continue reading and it says, “Remember these things, Jacob, for you, Israel, are my servant. I have made you, you are my servant; Israel, I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”



It’s his kindness that brings me to repentance.



The next time I’m out pwogging, in the very same spot a song comes on my Pandora and it’s one I’ve heard before, but don’t recognize it right away. It was Never Once by Matt Redmon. The lyrics are below, but I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me, figuratively and literally, that I have never walked (or pwogged) alone and that someday there will be another side to this. Someday, there will be victory, yes, but also growth and depth and looking back to see how far he’s brought me. Most of all, yet again, after years of reminders, he continues to tell me of his faithfulness.



I wrote this because I’m still in the middle and I will need to read this. Also, because I want/need to continue to be held accountable. The Color Run is only 31 days away! I can’t believe it!


Never Once (click here to see the video)

"Standing on this mountaintop
Looking just how far we’ve come
Knowing that for every step
You were with us

Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Never once did we ever walk alone
Carried by Your constant grace
Held within Your perfect peace
Never once, no, we never walk alone

Every step we are breathing in Your grace
Evermore we’ll be breathing out Your praise
You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful