Faith & Insight: Failure: Friend or foe

Surely, we are familiar with scriptures that remind us of our human nature, as well as the mirror. Such as Romans 3:23: “…For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace to the redemption, that is in Christ Jesus.”

Or how about 1 John 1:8–9: “If we say, we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful, and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Romans 5:8 states, “But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath through him.” Romans 6:23 states: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

There are hundreds of verses in the Bible, that declare hope after failure. Redemption! Forgiveness! Restoration! New beginnings! I don’t think there’s one of us that does not love the verse in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

I read something recently that said it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert at something.  Question, how many days I felt like or lived in failure. Let’s do the math, 10,000 hours divided by 24 hours equals 416.6 days. Walking in failure eight days a year times let’s say 55 years equals 440. Yep! That settles it, I’m an expert.

Expert: adjective: properly, experienced; taught by use, practice, or experience; hence, skillful; well, instructed; having familiar knowledge of. Yep, I’m sure of it! Expert! I for one, am glad, blessed, overwhelmingly humbled by the verse above that says if I confess my sins, (my failures), he is faithful, and just to forgive…

Failures can be the end of something, as well as the beginning of something! Failures don’t define us. Failures are not the end of you, because failures are not final. Failures have the potential to refine us.

Such a precious, precious verse found in 1 John chapter 2, “My little children, these things, I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation, (atoning sacrifice, payment) for our sins, and not for ours alone, but also for the whole world.”

We are not alone in this thing called life, especially, for those that are in Christ Jesus. Jesus said that he would never leave us, nor for sake us. What a great promise! Remember failures do not define you, they are not final and have the potential to refine us. Failures! We all know the story of Thomas Edison and the lightbulb, 1,000 failures before the breakthrough.

Here are some others. Penicillin: an accident that became an antibiotic. The Post-it note, a glue that was supposed to be super, became a glue that works perfectly on one edge of a piece of paper. How about chocolate chip cookies, potato chips, stainless steel, the slinky, silly putty, microwaves ovens. Wow! The pacemaker!

Take your failures, shortcomings, heartaches, sins, the missing of the mark, to our faithful advocate: Jesus Christ, then failures become fortifications against future failure. We are strong in Christ, with God, all things are possible!

May the Lord bless and keep you, join us as we encouraged in the Lord’s word.

Pat Propster is lead pastor at Calvary Chapel Carson City.