Second Tuesday of Ordinary Time

The LORD said to Samuel: "How long will you grieve for Saul, whom I have rejected as king of Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and be on your way. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have chosen my king from among his sons."

We all suffer setbacks in our lives. We all have plans that just don’t work out. We all know what it is like to have to start over from scratch. When faced with all these things we are often tempted to grieve or give up, but God reminds us that just because things don’t end up how we envisioned them, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t set out again and try to do things right the next time. Failure isn’t something we should fear. No. Not trying is what we should fear. Rarely does anything we do go off without a hitch or a hiccup or an outright disaster. But what matters is trying to do good and avoid evil. God doesn’t want us to grieve our failures, but to learn from them, to fill ourselves up with His grace, and then go back out into the world. Our Heavenly Father wants us to be on our way and not hiding. We might feel sad for ourselves and not want to risk being hurt again, but the only way to do God’s Will is to risk suffering and accept the sword that will pierce our hearts. Spiritual success doesn’t mean we would be called upon to make great sacrifices... in truth it may mean making even greater ones than we ever imagined.

How can we overcome our failures? What can we do to combat the discouraging emotions we suffer after a setback? How can we learn from our mistakes and go back out into the world and try again?

O Lord, fill us with your grace after our failures and send up back into the world.

Amen.