{"id":864,"date":"2019-02-06T06:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T06:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?p=864"},"modified":"2019-02-01T22:39:42","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T22:39:42","slug":"864","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html","title":{"rendered":"The Song of Failing Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"unsplash-logoVidar
Vidar Nordli-Mathisen<\/span><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The following is a devotion from my message series\u00a010 Steps to Freedom<\/a>. I hope these devotionals help you experience lasting freedom in Jesus!<\/em><\/p>\n

STEP NINE: day 3<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Fail forward<\/strong>\u00a0and keep pressing on<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Psalm 51 is a song of repentance in the life of King David after he was caught\u00a0 <\/span>in and called out on committing adultery with another man\u2019s wife, Bathsheba. King David was \u201cman after God\u2019s own heart\u201d yet he still struggled with sin. His key was to learn how to fail forward. Here are his own words:<\/span><\/p>\n

Have mercy\u00a0on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out\u00a0my transgressions. Wash away\u00a0all my iniquity and cleanse\u00a0me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict<\/i><\/span> <\/i>and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful\u00a0at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom\u00a0in that secret place. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Cleanse\u00a0me with hyssop,\u00a0and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones\u00a0you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out\u00a0all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart,\u00a0O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me\u00a0from your presence or take your Holy Spirit\u00a0from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit,\u00a0to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners\u00a0will turn back to you. You do not delight in sacrifice,\u00a0or I would bring it;<\/i><\/span>\u00a0<\/i><\/span>you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice,\u00a0O God, is\u00a0a broken spirit;<\/i><\/span> <\/i>a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. <\/i>Psalm 51:1-17<\/span><\/p>\n

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What part of David\u2019s admission of guilt in Psalm 51 (the first paragraph) do you identify with the most? <\/span><\/li>\n
  2. What part of David\u2019s prayer for forgiveness and deliverance in Psalm 51 (the second paragraph) can you begin to pray regularly in your life?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    You can read other devotional entries\u00a0for 10 Steps to Freedom\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The following is a devotion from my message series\u00a010 Steps to Freedom. I hope these devotionals help you experience lasting freedom in Jesus! STEP NINE: day 3\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Fail forward\u00a0and keep pressing on Psalm 51 is a song of repentance in the life of King David after he was caught\u00a0 in and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[119,375,376,69],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10-steps-to-freedom","tag-david","tag-psalm","tag-psalms","tag-repentance"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Song of Failing Forward - Next Steps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What does it look like to fail forward into freedom? Here is perhaps the most famous song in history about failing forward.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Song of Failing Forward - Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What does it look like to fail forward into freedom? Here is perhaps the most famous song in history about failing forward.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-02-06T06:00:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-02-01T22:39:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2019\/02\/vidar-nordli-mathisen-706922-unsplash-300x222.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Josh Daffern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@joshdaffern\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Song of Failing Forward - Next Steps","description":"What does it look like to fail forward into freedom? Here is perhaps the most famous song in history about failing forward.","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Song of Failing Forward - Next Steps","og_description":"What does it look like to fail forward into freedom? Here is perhaps the most famous song in history about failing forward.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html","og_site_name":"Next Steps","article_author":"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","article_published_time":"2019-02-06T06:00:22+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-02-01T22:39:42+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2019\/02\/vidar-nordli-mathisen-706922-unsplash-300x222.jpg"}],"author":"Josh Daffern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@joshdaffern","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html","name":"The Song of Failing Forward - Next Steps","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2019\/02\/vidar-nordli-mathisen-706922-unsplash-300x222.jpg","datePublished":"2019-02-06T06:00:22+00:00","dateModified":"2019-02-01T22:39:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c"},"description":"What does it look like to fail forward into freedom? Here is perhaps the most famous song in history about failing forward.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2019\/02\/vidar-nordli-mathisen-706922-unsplash-300x222.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2019\/02\/vidar-nordli-mathisen-706922-unsplash-300x222.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/02\/864.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Song of Failing Forward"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/","name":"Next Steps","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Josh Daffern","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c","name":"Josh Daffern","description":"Born and raised in California, Josh graduated college from California Baptist University and spent two years as a missionary in Africa before coming back to America and finding the love of his life (Robin). Josh graduated from New Orleans Seminary with a Masters of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry. Josh has been involved in full-time ministry for over twenty years. He enjoys hiking, beach volleyball, reading, playing anything competitive, and rough-housing with his kids. Josh, his gorgeous wife Robin, his outrageously handsome boys Zeke, Shepherd and Lincoln and his princess Elle, live in northern Virginia. Josh also blogs on Patheos as New Wineskins: an Apologist for the Modern Church and you can find links to all his content on joshdaffern.com. Enjoy the blog!","sameAs":["http:\/\/joshdaffern.com","facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","https:\/\/x.com\/joshdaffern"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/author\/jdaffern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions\/866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}