Loving Less, Part 1

When is failure bad enough to require God’s forgiveness? I have felt that small sins were less grievous than big sins and adhered to the belief that a simple failure had more nobility than humiliation.

Don't get me wrong. There are varying degrees of consequence to sin.

However, to place failure and humiliation side-by-side and attempt to place value on either is to miss the point of both. There is no value in failure and there is no honor in humiliation. To believe otherwise is to establish personal worth via performance. While others might be impressed, God is not!

On one of my recent walks, I left the house suffering humiliation from a larger than average sin and wondering how I could return myself to Father's good graces. Even though I know better theologically—a man can’t change God’s opinion of him through performance, either good or bad—I still felt an internal separation anxiety due to the humiliation of the sin I committed.

How great does our failure have to be before it becomes humiliation? I wondered.