I hear the words of Christian music artist Mandisa in my head as she sings on the radio, “You’re an overcomer. Stay in the fight until the final round. You’re not going under. ‘Cause God is holding you right now…” How many times have I felt defeated with the circumstances of life but a deep inner voice speaks to my heart these same words, “You’re an overcomer.” But even though I know God is right here, I can feel so alone. We all feel knocked down and beat up when things are not going our way. Or we feel ashamed when a choice we have made has consequences we didn’t anticipate. There are losses that are difficult to share even with those who love us: the promotion that never happened, the hoped for relationship that fizzled out, the baby that was never born. They leave us with a sense of inadequacy and failure that is difficult to shake. Does God really care about these feelings of defeat?
The Bible tells us that when we’ve seen Jesus, we’ve seen the Father. Jesus cared for the defeated. He announced His ministry when he read a passage from Isaiah that stated, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners…to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”
Are you held captive by a sense of failure and brokeness? Does despair surround you like a blanket of darkness? Jesus came to release you from all this and give you beauty for ashes. He wants us to be more than conquerors. We are overcomers. We choose not let failure get the best of us but to get up, wipe the ashes from us and try again. Often this is not from our own strength. We are lifted up by God’s people loving us when we are having a hard time loving ourselves. This is how others will recognize God’s people by how they love one another in good times and bad.
Remember all of us have experienced failure even those the world would consider to be successful. Most great people failed multiple times before they attained the status of greatness. The only difference between them and others is that they didn’t let defeat, defeat them. Abraham Lincoln is considered one of the greatest US presidents of all time but he went through trials that would have stopped most people. When he was yet a young boy his mother died suddenly. He was fortunate that his father re-married a woman who would encourage him to learn and better himself. When he was still a teen ager, his beloved sister Sarah, died in childbirth. She and her baby are buried together in the little cemetery near Lincoln’s boyhood home in southern Indiana. His family left Indiana and moved to Illinois in 1830. He first ran for the Illinois State legislature in 1832 and lost. He went into business with a friend in 1833 and it went under shortly thereafter. He could not pay the debt when it came due and his possessions were seized by the sheriff. He ran for the State legislature again in 1834 and won. He was able to pay his debt with his salary from the legislature and a position as a postmaster in New Salem, Illinois. In 1835 his sweetheart, Ann Rutledge died and left him heartbroken. He was re-elected to the State Legislature in 1836 and 1838. He was licensed to practice law in 1837 and was quite successful. He gained a seat in the US Congress in 1846 but didn’t run for a second term due to erosion of support back home in Illinois. He did run for US Senate but failed to gain a seat both in 1854 and 1858. However in 1860 he was elected as President of the United States. During his presidency, the country was divided over the issue of slavery in a great Civil War. In 1862, while he was serving in the White House, his son Willie died. He was again elected to the presidency in 1864 but was assassinated in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth while he was at the theatre with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. His life was tragic by any definition but he was known as a man of faith and great wisdom. It is thought that a raft trip as a young man down the Mississippi with a friend to deliver goods to New Orléans gave him the impetus to later implement the Emancipation Proclamation to abolish slavery. It was there that he witnessed slaves being bought and sold on the auction block. This experience so affected him that he stood up against great opposition to use the power given him for good. Even though his life was one of great loss and numerous failures, he moved beyond these obstacles to make a difference in the future of our country and it’s people.
But what it is that makes one an overcomer like Lincoln? I believe we are given the power to become overcomers by the Spirit of God when we recognize that we are a part of a bigger story: God’s story. Every joy and triumph, every loss and failure molds us into who we are meant to be. These experiences give us the means to play a role in “God’s Grand Story.” As Mordecai, Queen Esther’s uncle told her when he asked her to risk death by approaching the king to save her people, “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”
You might think that you are not a president or a queen with such responsibility but neither Lincoln nor Queen Esther came from positions of wealth or power. God moved their once simple lives into these positions for a reason. None of us know what part we are to play in “God’s Grand Story” but every good and bad experience in our lives moves us into the role we are to play. We become overcomers when we realize that whatever lies ahead for us, we were born “for such as time as this.”
“Our greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising up every time we fail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
