At sixteen, I was beyond excited to get my driver’s license, and even more so to drive my new-to-me car. 

Grandpa had found me a junker (and I mean a JUNKER), and fixed up the engine himself. 

Dad began the grueling process of teaching me how to drive it. 

Because this car came complete with a manual transmission.

One that an unskilled driver could easily jump and stall.  And I was no exception. 

Despite my jump & stall driving style, I continued to learn.

And then my parents left me for a weekend. 

Strict instructions NOT to drive the car.

Sure, Dad, gotcha covered.

Friends came over, and you can pretty well guess the rest of the story. 

Stalled vehicle, angry honking, sheer PANIC. 

Me, smack dab in the middle of a busy intersection.  Try as I may, I could not make it budge.  Start, jump, stall.  For two… whole… stoplights.

Tearful and shaken, I knew. 

I should have listened to my Dad.

Most of us can tell these tales.  Foolish stories from our youth.  Wayward choices ending poorly.

We have grown-up stories like that too.

Why is that?

What is it within us that gets us into trouble?  What leads us astray? 

It’s our flesh. 

That thing within that thinks we know best.  That thing that wants to please ourselves.  That thing that takes us down the path we never should have followed.

You are not alone in this.

And here comes Jesus to the rescue, because:

Where there is Jesus, there is grace.

This is one of the things I cherish about him most. 

He doesn’t count my offenses or hold them against me.  He doesn’t have a Holy tally board, adding another tick mark every time I mess up.  He never wags his finger with a divine tsk-tsk.  No. 

He forgives and forgets and points me in a new direction. 

Over and over again.

Psalm 103:12 promises this:

He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

PRAISE OUR GOOD AND HOLY GOD.

Because trying to measure up over and over again is mentally exhausting.

Some of you have given way to sin because you couldn’t measure up. 

Some have walked away from Him in seasons when the trying was too hard. 

Some of you have yielded to Jesus.  Except for that one thing.

I’ve walked those same roads, my friend.  I’m right there in it with you. 

We all have struggles in our lives.  Things we can’t get right. 

These require a daily giving over.

Let me encourage you, then, that no matter the struggle, you are not beyond repair.

He has seen it all, and nothing you do shocks the savior.

Nothing.

Perhaps it is time, then, to face that place of weakness or shame.  That thing that makes you stumble. 

That thing you haven’t faced him with.

To pick it up, walk it over to Jesus, and set it down at his feet. 

To take a posture of openness and honest confession. 

And bask in His forgiveness.

Because he’s got a bucket of mercy he is waiting to pour all over you. 

But sometimes the one thing standing between that bucket and Jesus is US.

Sometimes we have places in our hearts that need his touch. 

Ezekiel 36:26 says this:

And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.

A heart that beats in sync with Jesus.

Sisters, we will continue to face these challenges until our dying day.  Until the day we come face to face with Jesus.  So until then, make the daily choice to bring him those weaknesses.   

Let him transform that stony, stubborn place in your heart into something responsive and tender.   

A heart that knows the need for his mercy and openly receives his endless grace.