Try, Try again!

Psalm 60

Who will bring me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom (Psalm 60:9).

David's main force was with him on the Euphrates, fighting the Syrian army when the Edomites launched a sneak attack on Judah from the south. David dispatched Joab and a portion of the army to put a stop to Edom's advance, but reports from this second front indicated that the battle was not going well. David laments that God seems to have abandoned them: "Have you not rejected us, O God? You do not go forth, O God, with our armies" (60:10). 

David's lament ends in a plea for renewed help: Oh, grant us help against the foe..." (50:12).

Joab and his army eventually drove the Edomites from Judah, though the campaign was lengthy and bloody and final victory was hard-earned.

Here’s the take-away: When we fall we can always ask for God’s help and begin again. C. S. Lewis wrote, 

“You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven” (Mere Christianity).

Despite failure—even repeated failure—you are God's "beloved" (60:5). He is on your side, fighting with you. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again. Never give up! Never give up! Never give up!

David Roper

3.17.17