come in close for a secret

Yesterday was bad.  (That’s not the secret.) 

First I did this: 

See how I only mowed half the lawn?  I thought I had mowed the whole thing and didn’t notice until later in the evening that I missed…a little.  I hope the neighbors think I ran out of gas.   

Then I had a said-too-much conversation. 

Then I was in the very middle of my Bible lesson teaching several dozen children, when I realized I didn’t correctly understand part of the Bible verse and was teaching it completely wrong.  I turned red and began sweating.  Finally had to ask another adult in the room what she thought it meant.  Completely tanked. 

Here’s the secret I’ve learned in the last few years, though.  Lean in. 

God has always intended for me to succeed. 

My favorite verse in the whole Bible is this one:  “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”  (Ephesians 1:4  NIV) 

Can you imagine a day without blame?  No mess-ups?  No wrong words?  No stupidness?  God chose us, in Christ, for the purpose of having no-blame days, and God always achieves his purpose. 

On a day like today my instinct is to crawl under the covers and hope the world goes away, but God says I am chosen to be blameless not chosen to assume a fetal position and give up.  Success was planned for me before I was even created.  

So today I will rev up the mower (pretending to put gas in it if any neighbors are watching) and finish the lawn.  I’ll try harder to watch my words.  And I think I’ll get a head start on next week’s Bible lesson plan. 

Let me say the secret again, just for you: 

God has always intended for you to succeed.