The barrier

For years, engineers struggled with the problem of designing aircraft structurally sound enough to withstand the aerodynamic forces of breaking the sound barrier.

For me, the barrier has always been at forty days. I was doing well. I was running a good race. But on the fortieth day, I buckled.

In fact, the barrier recurs at forty-day increments. Before and after Christmas, I actually made it to eighty days — but on the eightieth day, I crumbled.

The problem for me, of course, is not structural integrity, but moral integrity; not a function of design, but of the will. I am weak. Christ is strong, I know; and He always has the strength I need to withstand any temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), if only I accept His grace and stand in it. But I am so weak.

The nearly two months since then have been more down than up. The loss of the grace I had, that I’d put so much faith in those forty days — the hair of my Samson — left me despondent, despairing. But that grace was nothing of mine to begin with, was it? It was all a gift of God. And I can take it again. My failure, my feebleness, is not enough to exhaust the merits of the Cross.

I am back in the fight.