When I was a little girl, I loved rollerskating. I even had a doll that had rollerskates. She was my little companion. She was the color of dark chocolate with long black synthetic hair and big black eyes that blinked. And she could literally skate! When something impeded her path, she would fall flat on her face, but guess what? Her legs would still be moving. All I had to do was sit her upright, and off she would go. Of course, this doll was made in the early 80s, and it is certainly not as advanced as today's tech toys.
I imagine today’s artificial intelligence isn’t far from a doll that would probably fall down, stop moving, and cry out in pain. She might not even get back up; instead, she might focus on her pain. Or maybe she would focus on her failure for a good amount of time until she garnished sympathy and she may not even try again. This doll might be a good teaching tool for kids to learn that it’s okay to cry.
But that wasn’t my 1980s doll. In fact, my doll's experience with falling down pretty much matched my experience. When I fell down, my mother let me cry but never catered too much to my sulking. She would hug me and reassure me by saying, “You’re okay. It’ll hurt for a little bit, but you’ll be fine.” She wouldn’t even bother to take my skates off. She would clean up my knee and send me right back outside to skate. While the imaginary, artificial intelligence doll of the future might teach us a lot about self-care and emotional acceptance, I’m glad I had the doll that didn’t stop skating and the mother who didn’t remove my skates.
In our humanness, we stumble, and we fall. We fail ourselves, we fail those around us, and we fail God over and over again. Yep, it all started with Adam and Eve choosing their own desires over the Word of God, and now we are destined to do the same thing, hurting our relationship with ourselves, others, and God in the process. This knowledge is paralyzing. When you do something intentionally or unintentionally out of your own desires and wants, and then you look around at all the damage caused by your actions, it’s easy to say to yourself, “I’m a terrible person. I’ll never come back from this. Why am I even trying?” To take it even further, it’s easy to make the decision to just live for yourself and to spiral into depravity because “I can’t do anything right anyway.” But here’s the good news, Jesus! If you believe that Jesus, born sinless in a sinful world, came from heaven to earth and paid the price for every sin that was committed and every sin that will ever be committed and conquered death, then you are hereby redeemed! Not only do you have eternal life with God now and forever, but because every one of your sins is covered by the blood of the Lamb, you have access to the Holy Spirit, which helps you to interpret God’s Word and choose to do what is right. Does this mean that you will never fall again? No, it means you have the power to pick yourself up when you fall, accept God’s forgiveness, and move forward in the grace granted by God.
See, even as Christ-followers, the world makes it very easy to sin, and the enemy makes it very easy to live in a perpetual state of worthlessness. They go hand in hand in a continual cycle if we allow it. Just fill in the blank: “I________; therefore, I’m not worthy of a relationship with God.” The enemy will point out and magnify your every offense, no matter how big or small. He likes nothing more than for you to remain paralyzed and disconnected from God so that you can either continue in your sin or block out the voice of the Spirit. As a Christ-follower, the best thing he can do with you is to make you useless to the kingdom of God. He finds great pleasure when you exist only to live in your guilt and shame because it separates you from God. And instead of turning away, you either become numb or try your best to fill the anguish by acting out even more. If you are stuck in this mindset, the first thing to do is to remember that you are redeemed! Allow the Holy Spirit to remind you. Don’t shut Him out, and wallow in your sorrow of shame. Cry out to God, seek and accept His forgiveness, and then turn away from your sin immediately. Reclaim your rightful place as a child of God. Bounceback!
Most of us know the scripture, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (NJKV). But we also need to memorize and recite the very next verse, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Let’s look at the word “condemn.” What does it mean? There are several synonyms; criticize, disapprove, punish, convict, judge, even damn. But Jesus didn’t come to punish us; instead, He took the punishment we deserved. In fact, Jesus said in John 12:47, “And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world” (NKJV). Jesus is, indeed, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29).
So I say to you, let God pick you up, mend your wounds, and send you back out to do His great work. When you stumble and fall, don’t remove your skates! Instead, reconnect with God, repent of your sins, and refuse the lies of the enemy. Bounceback!
Bounce back