A couple weeks ago, my school choir held auditions for solos in our upcoming concert (this was the week of Thanksgiving break and we had classes Monday and Tuesday). However, after spewing up my breakfast 1st hour, I was sent home by the nurse. Now, this made me quite despondent as a result because there was this one song that I REALLY wanted a solo for (the song is True Light in case anyone wanted to know, it’s incredible! Look it up on YouTube)! Anyway, I was pretty ticked. I asked my friend to relay a message to the director to see if I could audition after Thanksgiving break. Luckily, my director being the awesome guy he is, said sure!

So skip ahead a week! I’m sitting in choir and at the beginning of rehearsal my director stands and says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t post the solo list on Friday, y’all!” For some reason he likes that word. He was born and raised in the burbs, so your guess is as good as mine as to how “ya’ll” slipped into his vocabulary. He continued, “I would’ve posted it last Tuesday but someone was a little bit selfish and just HAD to be sick and still demand an audition.” Everyone looked at me…. Awkward silence soon ensued…. My director then finished, “So, Neal, wanna come audition now?” Thanks Mr. Koll. So I went down to the piano and started singing. My tone was great, I sounded good, I was belting out some notes, it was better than I expected! But then I got to the last note: the glory note. It was a high G and I sucked in a low deep breath in preparation to belt it out. Then I let it go, and oh man did I butcher it. My voice cracked, it was terrible. I turned bright red and everyone was laughing, I mean I was laughing too, it was funny! Well, long story short, I didn’t get the solo, I was embarrassed, and I had failed. Now I could go into extreme detail about my failures and short comings in life but I think ya’ll have the gist of it and who wants to beat a dead horse? (Is that how that saying goes…?)

As humans we fail everyday. We fail our loved ones, our bosses, our teachers, our friends, ourselves, and most everything else. For example, in baseball, you’re considered an above average hitter if you fail 7 out of 10 times. Humans are designed for failure, and as a Christian, this is extremely convicting. We are a fallen people, yes, yet God still accepts us, loves us, and calls us his children (a title that we are all absolutely underserving of). Where am I going with this? Martin Luther, a leader of the Protestant Reformation who’s ideas became the foundation for the Lutheran Church, dedicated himself to monastic life, devoting himself to fasting, long hours in prayer, pilgrimage, and frequent confession all as a result of his feeling of unworthiness in God’s eyes. Multiple times a day, for hours on end Luther would go to confession because his mind was living in constant sin and he was repeatedly failing God over and over again. I see myself exemplified in Luther constantly. I continue to fail God again and again, and sometimes I begin to fear that God will stop forgiving me or that he will forsake me because I have strayed too far away from Him. On some occasions, I even find myself too embarrassed to return to God! In case any of you were wondering, this is NOT how it is supposed to be. As long as we return to God and repent, we are forgiven. We all fail, and none of us deserve God’s love, but what’s important to realize is that God loves us anyway and he desires a relationship with us, no matter how often we fail him.

So brothers and sisters in Christ, I implore you to chase after God with a passion never seen before. The devil will knock you down, but God will be right there to pick you back up. Rely on and live for Him, and you will live a life that honors your Father in Heaven and reveals His love to those around you.

God bless,

Neal Overbay

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” – Psalm 73:26