Begin Again

Begin Again.  The math may be straightforward, but the journey is a winding road: get back up more than you fall down. “The righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity” (Pro. 24:16). The distance between seven and eight is greater than the distance between one to seven combined; a gap too great to measure in inches. Getting up the eighth time must be measured by grit, determination, humility, and faith.

Begin again, the Spirit whispers, though it sometimes seems like common sense to stay down on the canvas and accept the knock-out. However, if it is worth it, then begin again. Even if it is not worth it, begin again but in a different way. Or, as one mentor put it, which at first seemed like fingernails on a chalkboard, “If it is worth doing, then it is worth doing poorly.” Translation: it’s too easy to say, “If it is worth doing, then it is worth doing well.” Of course, an obviously worthy task deserves excellence! But if a thing is truly assessed as worthy, then it, itself, is more significant than failing seven times than leaving the worthy thing undone, untried, unfulfilled. Righteousness overrides failure. No one else is speaking out, but I have not written a script. Okay, here goes nothing. No one else is showing up, but I can spare an hour a week on it for the remainder of this year. Okay, mark it down as the old college try. No one else is stretching beyond minimum effort, but I can limber up and give it a go … or two, or eight. Okay, this is worth more than any potential dinging to my reputation.

Worth is not measured in the seven inadequate attempts by the subject, but in the worthiness of the object that requires, emboldens, and fuels an eighth attempt. Faith bounces back, floats to the top, dusts off, and begins again. In this way, it is the weak ones who know experientially more about worth than the strong ones, who never fail mostly because they never try anything that is beyond their reasonable capacity to win. The weak ones who fall regularly know a different reason for rising again an eighth time. For them, it is more than a determination to win, but an inclination to value the best stuff. Raw strength is brittle. Resilience is refined strength, malleable and adaptable. Getting up eight times is packed into an unlikely term: meekness, which could be translated as pliability, the characteristic under pressure to begin again. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5).