I have become a sign to many; you are my strong refuge. – Psalm 71:7

I think anybody who knows me personally can tell you that I am probably not the ideal role model for non-jaded youngsters brimming with life. If anything, they could point to me and say, “do not become like that guy because this is what happens when you don’t live morally.” I remember a time, when preaching, said something like, “don’t be a flip flopper when it comes to making decisions.” Seriously, it was in the realm of “let your ‘yes’s be ‘yes’s and your ‘no’s true ‘no’s. Of course, not more than an hour later at a church staff meeting, no less, I’m sitting there giving both “yes” and “no” to the same question in alternating fashion. I know that’s minor, it’s not like I was caught doing something atrocious which speak to the moral shortcomings of 21st century religious leaders. But let’s be real, we all have horrible experiences with being role models and/or watching our role models fail miserably and succumb to a horrific moral shortcoming. You and I could rattle off a few off the top of our heads where role models failed over the past several weeks. Am I right? But here’s the interesting thing about being a role model; you don’t have to be a beacon of moral superiority. In fact, the only thing you need, to be a role model is an idea of where to get help when you need it. The Psalmist writes that we are role models when we proclaim God to be the place where we go when we’re tumultuously placed in life. But that is not entirety of it. We don’t just proclaim God to be our “refuge” when we are desperate, nor do we only turn to him in 50 Hail Marys when we need a quick fix miracle. The Psalmist wants us to know that we can always go to God and our confidence in ourselves don’t have to stem from our inner-selves, but be sourced out of the hope in being a child of God. When we have hope in God for everything, despite of and because we are who we are, we begin to live thankfully and gratefully. We read here in this chapter that “praise” forms on our lips and our lifestyles begin to reflect something different and apart from what the rest of the world is used to seeing. There is a swagger that sets you up to be followed as a role model that was never about how much you fall short, but about how much you rely on God despite your shortcomings. But this only happens when we make God our refuge. I want you to be a role model. We should all want to be role models. It doesn’t mean that we will never fail morally or at a task assigned to us. But where we fail, we should know where we can get help and to whom we can rely. Christianity differs from each and every other religion and philosophy in this aspect– we don’t have to be superior and indestructible on our own. We are given specific information on who and where we can go when we realize that we will always fall short and never be the emblem of perfection everybody wants us to be. We cry out and call up to Jesus and into the mercy of God and because we turn that way and defer ourselves to God’s grace, we become role models, exemplars to other people on how we should live. It’s true, we may mess up here and there or everywhere in between here and there, but if we have on the tips of our tongues, the understanding of God’s grace despite ourselves, we are role models aptly able to show other people how to praise God.