God, you know every sin I’ve committed;
My life’s a wide-open book before you.
Don’t let those who look to you in hope
Be discouraged by what happens to me,
Dear Lord! GOD of the armies!
(The Message)

There are many people who look at a handful, or a relative handful, of Christians and attempt to prove that God cannot exist if his followers are like THAT, whatever THAT may be. This is not a new idea. King David understood this reality nearly three thousand years ago. 

He knew his heart. He knew his failures. He knew that as he had failed before, he would fail again. His prayer is humble and full of emotion. He did not wish to prevent anyone from seeing how good God is by being distracted by how sinful he was. 

That’s good praying. 

One of our duties as followers of Jesus is to help people see how good he is. It is pretty hard to do this if we are trying to show them how good we are. No matter how good we think we might be, we all fail. Celebrity Christians fail. Political Christians fail. Athlete Christians fail. I, yes, even I fail. 

Jesus never fails. 

John the Baptist had the right idea in John 3:30. More Jesus; less me. 

You will fail. I will fail. King David failed. Our Father in heaven never does. He can do anything but fail. Jesus never failed. He died better than we live. 

Keep the focus on our Father in heaven, and not on us. Point people to Jesus. Humble repentance as public as our sin provides a nice arrow directing people toward God’s goodness. Ignoring our own sin or pretending it is less of a problem than it is turns people away. Let’s be honest to God and to everyone else.