Failure is hard to admit and very difficult to recover from especially when some failures could have been avoided altogether. It can be failure to slow down while driving which resulted in an accident. Or failure to listen to your boss who said not to make that phone call but you did. As a result, there was a terrible fall out with a key client and the business suffered. Your job is now on the line.
Other failures can be a result of something outside of our control or we simply didn't have all the information when we made a decision.
Failure touches all aspects of our lives. We can fail spiritually, physically and emotionally. For most believers failure feeds into an overwhelming sense of guilt. And a fear that God may have written them off for good just like others they had repeatedly failed.
What often follows failure is this intense labor to get back into God's favor. We make promises and vows never to do this or that again only to find ourselves fallen flat on our face!
Think of Moses who failed by striking the rock in an outburst of anger rather speaking to it as God directed. Moses could not enter the Promise Land but he was not a failed leader of God's people. King David committed adultery and murder. But God did not remove His mercy from David but kept His promise that there would not fail to be a man on the throne. Jonah was called to Nineveh instead he ran in the opposite direction. God's plan was not hindered by his unwillingness and ordered Jonah back to save a wicked and lost city.
If failure teaches us anything is that God is faithful to work in our lives despite our fallen condition. It does not mean God turns a blind eye from our sins but knows how to make everything work for good to those who love Him (Romans 8:28). Life is not always good but God will always be good to us.
Beloved, we are not a failure but through Christ we are victorious. Even when we must live with the consequences of our failures God gives us greater grace to keep walking with Him instead of being paralyzed by shame. When shadows of regret and guilt want to darken our path we must press into Him.
Remember you are not the sum total of your mistakes, failures and mishaps in life. Rather you are new and being renewed in Christ as 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (KJV). God is shaping us into a fine and beautiful child that radiates His glory and grace.
When your feet touch the floor in the morning remember His mercy is new each day - this very moment is new with fresh mercy - to carry you through another day.
Hold to this promise beloved and look up to an open heaven with no clouds of failure between us and our Savior.
I have swept away your sins like a cloud. I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free. Isaiah 44:22, NLT
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