"Daddy, why are you always mad?"

That was the very question my young son Derek asked me a few weeks back. I couldn't really give him a good answer. My first reaction was to become defensive. That's right I got angry with my 5 year old son about him asking me why I was always angry. I don't know what it is really that drives me to this point. I can't really put a finger on it. I sometimes blame it on work, or being tired, or just stress in general, but it's never the real excuse. It seems to come in phases as well. I will be go through these times when I am just on edge, angry, or stressed about something. Hiding it around other people is easy. Hiding it around my family is impossible. So what is it that drives me to this point?

The more I think about it, I think it is a general sense that I have of being a failure in every area of life. Spiritually, relationally, physically, and mentally. Whether I really am a failure or not is not the issue. It's the feeling I have and no matter what people tell me I have a lot of trouble shaking it. I know how I am in reality. I know my thoughts. I know my actions. I know what I say I believe. I can see the where none of these things line up. This to me equals failure. Am I the only one that feels like this?

There is this voice that screams loudly in my head. The voice nags me seemingly 24 hours a day, telling me that I am no where near good enough. That I will never be good enough. It tempts me to quit. To literally quit. My job, my family, my beliefs. Quit it all and give up because you will never be what you need to be in those areas. You fail as a husband. You fail as a father. You fail as a son, and brother. You fail as an employee. You fail as a follower of Christ.

Since I am a lover of music, I often look to songs to help me through whatever I am dealing with. One song in particular that really states how I feel is by Shane&Shane (who else?) called "Embracing Accusation". The one line in the bridge that just about reduces me to rubble everytime is... "the devil singing over me, and age old song, that I am cursed and gone astray... singing the first verse so conveniently over me, he's forgotten the refrain 'Jesus Saves'!"

It's so hard to block out that voice of accusation, and it is hard to grasp on to the truth of Jesus saving us in all areas of life. I can't hear those words enough. I need to hear them from the moment I wake up in the morning, to the moment I lay down again at night. God be with me and remind me all the time that you have saved me from these failures that I latch onto. Help me to let them go.