By Donna McMorrow

Do you remember the Road Runner cartoons? Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote were featured in more than two dozen Warner Brother cartoons. Road Runner is a tricky bird who somehow manages to elude Wile E. Coyote’s valiant, if misguided, attempts to catch him and eat him for dinner. 

The adversarial duo fight an eternal battle of need versus speed and aggravation versus acceleration. The luckless Wile E. comes up with increasingly elaborate and seemingly foolproof schemes to catch Road Runner, who, oblivious to his danger, always eludes the pathetic coyote’s painstaking plans. Wile E. does his best, but somehow everything always backfires on him. Poor Coyote. It doesn’t matter how determined he is. It doesn’t matter how good his ACME equipment is. He just is not adequate for the task. 

I can relate to Wile E. Coyote. Can you? It doesn’t matter how early I get up in the morning. It doesn’t matter how many books on parenting, home organization or Christian living I read. I can get the biggest Bible commentary, listen to the latest biblical podcast, attend the life group meeting, and take notes on Pastor Jeff’s sermons, but even so, like Wile E., things sometimes fall apart with a poof! Fortunately, it’s not really all up to me. It isn’t about how strong I am. It’s about how strong He is. When our heart is seeking Jesus, we fall down and get back up. We receive mercy and find grace to sustain us. The Bible says:

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in His presence.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  - 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, 13-14,16-18 

Sometimes we fail at what we are trying to do. Our plans blow up in our face, but God says that we are more than conquerors. Failure is not final with the Father.

 Donna McMorrow and her husband have been married for 41 years. She is a retired special education teacher, adoptive parent, cancer survivor and child of the King. In her free time, she enjoys reading, photography and painting.