Failures

“The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand.” (Psalm 37:23-24 NLT)

Often our sense is that failures are fatal, and sometimes they are on some levels, but they’re never final for a child of God. My life and ministry looked a lot different after the failure of my marriage, but it became apparent over time the Lord may have altered my path, but He didn’t end my journey.

We tend to place too much emphasis on our inability to overcome defeat and failure and far too little on the power of God to work through the circumstances of our lives, not only to His glory and honor, but to our good. My relationship with the Lord has deepened and my ministry opportunities have broadened exponentially since my failure.

Yes, of course, the path has looked quite different and some of the experiences I’ve had I would never have chosen for myself. And sometimes the healing journey can be painful, humbling, but will pay rich dividends if we trust the Lord and stay the course. Dave Harvey nails it when he wrote: “Our failures are never big enough to interrupt God’s plans for us.” 

The key is never running away from the Lord. While our tendency may be, as it was for me, to hide from the Lord in shame, disgust with ourselves, and an unwillingness to see any hope for our future, gratefully, God never sees it that way. In God’s way of thinking failure is just one step closer to success, if we’re willing to trust Him and allow Him to walk with us through the healing process.

Failure isn’t final unless we allow it to be. We must understand that the Lord saw this failure before He ever chose us. Like King David, He was chosen even though the Lord knew he would fall and fail miserably. But God wasn’t finished with David and He isn’t finished with me or you. Some of David’s most helpful and meaningful Psalms, like the one above, was written under the inspiration of the Spirit even in light of his failure.

Perhaps you’re in the midst of a crippling failure right now or know someone who is. The outcome is directly linked to where we are with the Lord. Failure as a child of God gives us a resource of strength, encouragement and an unfolding path to recovery through our relationship with the Lord, while those without a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus have no such resource.

Of course, the Lord is available and is always open to anyone who will repent, turn from their sin, shame, and cycle of failure and turn to Him for forgiveness, wholeness, and a new life led and governed by the Holy Spirit. If you’ve never opened your life to the Lord, please visit Ron Hutchcraft’s The Bridge to God by clicking on the highlighted link.

It may seem to us that our failures re-route, derail, or delay God’s plans in our lives, but the truth is, they’re all part of His plan. Having known before the beginning of time that we’d fail, He worked it all out exactly as He’d planned, knitting our failure as part of the threads He’s using to create the tapestry of our lives.

Failure is never final when we give it to the Lord. He will always use every detail of our life for our good and His glory if we’ll leave the choice to Him.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊