The difference between success and failure depends on how you look at it. Our culture has conditioned us to see success as a most desirable goal and failure as a terrible event. Most people view freedom from difficulties, not the ability to handle difficulties well, as a measure of success and maturity, yet God continues to build His kingdom purposes with those who have failed.
The God of the unsuccessful
Although failure is not a requirement for success, it can be a stepping stone to deeper relationships with God and others. By God’s grace we can learn how to fail successfully! God is a specialist in working out our failings into His purposes.
Sometimes failure can actually get you closer to a place where God wants you to be
After miserably failing to deliver the Hebrews in his own strength and afterward spending forty years in the Midian desert Moses was adamantly reluctant to represent God to the Pharaoh
“What if they do not believe me or listen to me?… Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue… Please send someone else.” Exodus 4:1, 10, 13
Later, this timid Moses confidently stood up to the Pharaoh face to face. When there was no way of escape from the Pharaoh’s fast approaching army Moses boldly told his people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.”
Failure can increase your confidence in God.
Even if we’re feeling useless or washed up God can do for you and I what he did for Moses. He can call us back to Himself and deepen our trust in Him. After Moses’ failure his ‘uninvited and unexpected time’ in the Midian desert brought him to a place of personal reflection and it’s is no different for you and me.
We can learn from our wilderness time that our life is not over and neither is our life purpose! Afterwards we can be available and respond confidently when an opportunity arrives. Are you ready for a burning bush?
Failure can empower us to help others.
We can deepen our trust in God by learning from our failings. Our greatest fear should not be of failing at something, but by failing at something that doesn’t matter all that much. Like Moses, after we’ve majorly blown it we can find ourselves in the proverbial wilderness, but God is not done with us.
While we’re in the desert we are in a place where we are not where we used to be or where we want to be. Are you in unchartered territory and want to get out of it, but you can’t.
Failure is an open door for a deeper trust in God.
But, if my heart response is, “I don’t need this, I don’t deserve this, I’m a failure, I can’t do anything right” or if I blame others for my failings I won’t learn to trust in God with my fears. Thankfully, there is a better way! Like Moses you can accept your failings and let God use them. His glory can shine out of what we bring to him in humility!
When you are honest with yourself and God you can trust that His everlasting arms of acceptance are always open to you! Trust that God can redeem your poor choices to help others. He’s used to it. He’s good at it and he wants to do that for you. Thank God He uses the ordinary to do extraordinary things for His Glory.
