Getting Up When You’ve Fallen

“A righteous person may fall seven times, but he gets up again.”
Proverbs 24:16 (GW)

After a week into the New Year, have you gotten discouraged because you haven’t made the progress you expected? Maybe every good intention has fallen through, and you feel like giving up. Proverbs 24:16 (GW) offers us hope for when we fall. It says, “A righteous person may fall seven times, but he gets up again.”  I don’t know about you, but I find some comfort in that verse. Notice that the one who falls in this passage is a righteous person. Even righteous people fall. We are all human. And not only does this righteous person fall, but it seems to be a repeated pattern – seven times! Yet, he keeps getting back up again!  This is the power of resilience! It enables us to get up instead of give up!   

How resilient are you? When you fall, do you land like a basketball or a bowling ball? In Ecclesiastes 7:20 (NLT), the Bible says, “Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins.” The Apostle Paul may have had that in mind when he wrote to the Romans and said, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 (NIV).

So, the question isn’t if you will fall at times; the question is when you fall, what then? Your fall doesn’t have to be fatal! If you’re still occupying space and taking in oxygen, there is hope! There is no sin greater than God’s grace. 

How does a righteous man get up when he’s fallen? By grace! Grace lifts us from our fallen state and offers us a place beside Christ to sit in heavenly realms! Grace gives us what we don’t deserve - forgiveness and favor! And grace is unlimited! That’s great news for those of us who’ve blown it multiple times! This doesn’t mean that grace is a license to sin. Rather, grace offers comeback capacity – the resilience to bounce back, to learn from our mistakes instead of living in them. When you’re so filled with guilt you can’t even lift your head, grace restores your dignity and worth! David understood that, when feeling failure as a father and on the run from his own son.  He prayed in Psalm 3:3 (NIV), “But you, LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.”

What love! What mercy! God, in His matchless grace, stoops down to lift us up when we’ve fallen - even if it was our own fault! David experienced that grace! He said, “The sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit. God, you will not reject a heart that is broken and sorry for sin.” Psalm 51:17 (NCV)

---

 To read this devotional online or catch up on past ones, visit https://kerryshook.org/blog.

Another important part of your daily devotional is spending time with God in prayer. The Woodlands Church Prayer Board lists prayer requests submitted by our members and provides a way to send them some encouragement by using a button on the page to let them know that you prayed for them. Whether you use the Prayer Board, or pray from your heart, the goal is to build the habit of incorporating prayer into your quiet time.

Need prayer yourself? Let us know by submitting a prayer request on the Woodlands Church Prayer Board.