Trying – and Failing

Whenever a President of the United States is elected, the conversation is about what he (at least to that point) will be able to accomplish during his term(s). When he is re-elected, the pundits, along with the President himself, begins to think and talk about this thing we call “legacy.”

One writer, and if by supposition we assume the President was speaking about his legacy, says the current President will be remembered, in part, by this:

Yet piece by piece, he is building what he is convinced voters want. He will use his powers, he says, to build a country where “you can make it if you try.” (Ben Feller, Yahoo News)

I am not so sure that is exactly true. There are a plethora of possibilities that are dependent not on trying, but on other criteria. No matter how hard I might attempt some things, I will not reach the goal. We are often limited by or minds, our bodies, our circumstances, and our inability to understand what is required. The “soaring rhetoric” of an Inaugural Speech will never change that. While some may believe “anything is possible,” unless they allow for the intervention of God, that statement is not true.

A classic example is this: Scores of people believe that if they can pile up enough “good works” in their life they will find admittance to the glorious Kingdom of Heaven when all is said and done on this planet. Not so. There must be an intervention of God’s llove and grace.

“Trying,” whether it is to change the economic fortunes of a Nation, or to lead a group of people to abandon bitterness and hatred, racism and injustice, is a noble venture, but destined to failure without the omnipotent intervention of the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

“Trying,” using the “wisdom” of man, “trying,” in the face of insurmountable odds, “trying,” when the war is spiritually infinite, is failure in the making. Soaring rhetoric will never suffice. Hard work will never accomplish the task. Wishing and hoping is insufferably insufficient.