Sometimes we make a mess of our lives. This time of year some students are becoming aware they have invested too little time studying. And for some of these high school students the consequence will be that they are not going to be able to enter the college they had hoped to attend. They may well see their lives as messed up. A marriage falls apart and a family breaks up because of a long history of bad choices, of wrong deeds done and right deeds left undone, a long history of too many hurtful words and too few healing words. The result is all the persons impacted by the break up feel their lives are messed up. Our lives can be messed up by decisions or choices we have made, by what we have done or left undone.

But our messed up lives are not always our fault. Sometimes circumstances beyond our control mess up our lives. For example, some people have gone into business, but their business was doomed and their lives messed up by some decisions made by the board of directors of some multinational corporation far away from Austin. Circumstances beyond their control made a mess of their lives. Persons growing older who are able to do less and less can feel that their lives are messed up by the circumstances of aging.

Sometimes the choices we make and the words we speak make a mess of our lives. But it is also possible for our lives to be messed up by circumstances beyond our control.

Regardless of the cause, when it seems our lives are in a mess, we can experience a variety of emotions. Sometimes we feel frustrated. Sometimes we are angry. In other situations we feel self-contempt and guilt. Sometimes we want to kick ourselves. At other times we want to hit somebody. Sometimes we feel like running away. Sometimes we feel like giving up.

Even though we may say we do not know what to do when our lives are in a mess, that is rarely true. Most of the time, we have some idea of what duty requires of us. We have some idea of the honorable thing to do. It is extremely rare that we have no idea of what we ought to do, or what should be our next step.

However, as important as it is to know our duty and what we ought to do, such knowledge by itself is a heavy burden to carry. When the only thing we are aware of is what we ought to do, the way we tend to approach life, at best, is with grim determination. And when that is all we have, we are soon exhausted. When all we have is an awareness of what is expected of us and the obligations laid on us, resentment colors the way we live, and if we leave undone what we know we ought to be doing, our living is distorted by guilt.

But that is not all that can bog us down. Fear of futility can drain our energy. This is when we know what we ought to do, but we are in the grips of a strong fear that our doing it will not do much good. We are so afraid that what we know we ought to do is such wasted effort that we cannot muster the energy to try. "Why bother?" we ask. "It won't make any real difference."

When our lives are messed up and we are without a sense of hope, and we are in the grip of a variety of fears, we rarely, if ever, live as God intends. Instead, we merely bounce between the awful extremes of hopeless depression and angry resentments.

It is not unusual for us to feel trapped in our messed up lives. We know we cannot undo what we have done. And we also know we cannot undo what others have done. And it is painfully clear that because of the mess we are in, what could have been will never be. Time marches forward; it does not move backwards. We do not get a second chance on any of our yesterdays. Little wonder so many of us with our lives in a mess are depressed or angry or filled with shame or loaded with resentments.

What is the good news for us when our lives are in a mess? In Paul's letter to the Galatians, he quoted the Old Testament: "The righteous person will live by faith." Faith is the key to living in a right relationship—a right relationship with life and with God. This is true whether our lives are in a mess or not.

The faith Paul was talking about is living our lives, trusting God—as God has been revealed in Jesus Christ. We are to live, trusting God is for us and not against us—even when our lives have been messed up by circumstances beyond our control. Even then—when circumstances beyond our control have made a mess of our lives—especially then, it is essential that we live our lives trusting God is for us and not against us.

And when the bad choices we have made have made a mess of our lives—then, too—we are to live by faith; we are to live trusting the God of grace is for us, even when we have messed up. We are to live trusting that God does not reject us just because we made a mess of our lives.

This is at the heart of the Gospel that has been revealed in Jesus Christ. Even when we have messed up and done our worst, even rejecting and torturing God's most precious gift to us, God does not reject or abandon us. God is for us, and not against us.

But this is knowledge we are able to discover only through faith. Do you remember the old analogy about trusting water? When we trust water to hold us up, we are able to swim over great depths. But when we are afraid we are going to drown, we fight the water and drown, even though the water may be relatively shallow. We discover water can hold us up only when we are willing to trust it to do so. We come to know God only as we live through both good and bad times—especially bad times—trusting God is for us.

But there is more to faith as Paul understands it than trusting God is for us and not against us. Paul's faith was also confidence that God is with us. God is not merely a distant cheerleader. Whether we are caught in terrible circumstances that are beyond our control or suffering the consequences of bad choices, God is with us.

The Easter message is that even when we feel as Mark said Jesus felt, and we cry out that we are God-forsaken, Easter shows us that God has been with us, is with us and will be with us. Even when our lives are so messed up we are unable to be sensitive to the presence of God, God is with us, and because God is with us, God is able to do amazing things with our lives and through our lives, and even through our failures, even through the crosses we must bear.

Because by faith, we live trusting God and trusting God is with us, we live in hope—especially when our lives are messed up. We live trusting that if God can take the worst humans can do and transform the crucifixion of Jesus into the saving event for the world, God can certainly take whatever we are going through and use it for good. There is hope for us in our messed up lives. It is the hope that springs from faith in God.

When our lives are messed up, either by circumstances we cannot control or by bad choices we have made, our lives are not ruined. Only our agenda for living has changed. That is all. Our new agenda may not be the agenda we want, but it is an agenda that God can use for good—when we live by faith, trusting God so much that we are obedient to God.

This is another dimension of Paul's understanding of faith. Faith is not only trusting God. Faith is not only living with confidence in God. Faith is also trusting God so completely and having such confidence in God that we live striving to do what God wants. After all, we trust God and have confidence in God. Because of this trust and confidence, it simply flows that we want to do what God would have us do.

It is our trust, our confidence in God that gives us hope. And the energy of hope enables us to do what we know we ought to do, what we know we should do. It is by faith we are able to live as God intends. It is in trusting God that we are able to deal with our messed up lives and live as God wants.

This is the good news when our lives are in a mess. The key is faith—trusting God is for us, trusting God is with us, trusting God can make use of whatever we offer. Through faith, we are able to live with confidence and hope, doing what God wants us to do. Such a life is more, much more than merely struggling through the ordeal of the mess we are in.

God, give us such faith. Amen.

 

Pastoral Prayer:

God, on this day our nation has set aside to honor mothers, we give thanks for our mothers and for all those who have been like mothers to us. For all those women and men who have provided the mothering nurture needed to bring out the best in us, we give you thanks.

We are also aware that for some, this day is not only a day celebrating their mothers, but also a day of grief because of their inability to give birth to children. Free them from bondage to regret, comfort them, and enable them to discover ways to express their abilities to nurture children.

And God, we know that others have painful memories of their mothers. Give them the grace they need to forgive what needs to be forgiven so that they will be set free from old angers and resentments and able to move on, living the lives you intend them to live.

In a similar way, O God, heal the hurt within those mothers and fathers who are in pain because of the wrong and destructive choices their children have made. Give them the grace they need to move on with their lives.

All this we pray in the name of the one who taught us to pray: "Our Father …"