A Mechanical Device That Can and Will Fail

 

A Mechanical Device That Can and Will Fail

 

                Summer sun was filtering directly into our eyes as my sons and I arrived for training. As a person with migraines, I was less than thrilled. I would have preferred to skip it. I do, however, believe all children should learn to handle firearms safely, they are everywhere and knowledge creates wise children who take appropriate actions with dangerous tools. As such when the Boy Scouts offered the firearm merit badges, the boys signed up. I am very glad that I didn’t leave because the lesson was worth the discomfort of the sunlight. Before a single book was opened and way before anyone touched a weapon, the teacher stood up and told the kids the motto he wanted them to live by. “A safety is a mechanical device that can and will fail”. He maintained that people treat the “safety’ on a weapon as an excuse to treat a device that kills as “safe”.

                So, as we listened in class, every thirty min. the man would stop and have all the people repeat the motto. “A safety is a mechanical device that can and will fail”. Study the features of the weapons, repeat the motto. Study different weapons and uses, repeat the motto. Study the laws on hunting in our state, repeat the motto. When we went to the range to shoot, ever so often, we repeated the motto. Today if you say the word “safety” around my boys there is a good chance, “A safety is a mechanical device that can and will fail”, will be automatically mouthed. And every firearm they touch is assumed to be loaded and dangerous. We had an excellent teacher. My children know no weapon is safe, the little device installed in each weapon can and does fail.

                Where am I going with this. I am going to give you a motto. “The body of Christ is full of finite people who can and do fail”. You need to embrace this motto, so that you are not surprised. So that your life is not rocked by the inevitable. People fail. People betray. People abandon.

                “The one I kiss, He’s the one; arrest him!” (Matt 26:48b) Jesus himself was not exempt from being betrayed by those in his inner circle. Someone who had, done life, with Jesus for three years betrayed him. He was Almighty God, why are you surprised by betrayal? The apostle Paul wrote “Do your best to come quickly, for Demus, because he loved this world, has deserted me” (2 Tim. 4:9-10). The apostle Paul was abandoned by someone who wanted bigger and better things for themselves than to be tied to a prisoner. Why are we surprised when the things of this world sidetrack members of the body? Paul was abandoned, of course people will leave us, or leave our ministries and our churches, or even walk away from the Body of Christ entirely. Paul said “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit?”. At the very beginning of the church itself we see people lying to Paul and the Holy Spirit. Why are we surprised when Christians lie, or sin or fail miserably morally? Why does it cut us so hard when leaders stumble, when someone leaves that we thought never would. The Bible is full of these failures, betrayals and abandonments. “The body of Christ is full of finite people who can and do fail”.

                Perhaps the issue is we believed in the safety device, we trusted in it, we held humans up as infallible, in a way we should never have done.  There is only one rock of unchangeability. We need to remember who is God? And who is a mechanical device that can and will fail? Heb. 13:8 tells us, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever”. He will not be swayed by a new friend to hurt his old friend. He will not be tempted to sin or to abandon you when a fight gets real. Jesus says, “I will never leave you; never will I forsake you”. (Heb. 13:5) He says, “And lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world”. (Matt 28:20). Heb. 6: 18-19 tells us “It is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence”. Any time we put human beings in the place of God we will be disappointed. We are incredibly failable beings. Stop being surprised, crushed, shaken to the core…we are not God. We fail.

                I am so glad that God is not like us.  Luke 1:37 “No word from God will ever fail”.  “Be strong and courageous. For the Lord your God goes with You; he will never leave you nor forsake you”, Deut. 31:6. “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save”, Psalm 146:3. When you get discouraged, look up, you are not supposed to have been trusting in humanity to start with.

               

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