Failure
Management
Romans 5:20
Failure is common to all of us. Failure is not an event, but an assessment of an event. Everyone who desires to live for Jesus will experience failure. God's Word tells us repeatedly that He forgives us and we have a new opportunity to walk with Him each day. Yesterday's failures teach us to get up and do it again. Someone once asked Churchill, if failing the third grade was one of his greatest failures. He replied, "I did not fail the third grade, they gave me another opportunity to do it better." We tend to think that when we sin, or stumble it has ruined our future: quite the contrary. We have a new opportunity and a greater dependence on Jesus now than even yesterday. We are not just jars of clay as the apostle Paul states; we are cracked pots. When 40 years old Moses committed murder and went from a position of privilege to that of a fugitive (Exodus 2). David, King of Israel, committed adultery and murder (II Samuel 11). Jonah disobeyed God and got more emotional about a vine dying than revival in Assyria (Jonah 4:10-11). Peter denied the Lord, and returned to his fishing business after Jesus was crucified (Matthew 26:69-74, John 21). The list goes on and on. I used to think of these men as dynamic extraordinary men of God, used mightily, without realistically appreciating the path that made them great. Moses began his life, in many ways at age 80, after his life was blown apart by sin. The Lord used David incredibly after his great sin and he used Jonah even though he had a bad attitude. Peter, WOW, what a wonderful ending he had as he experienced Pentecost and leadership in the early church.
The good news is that God does not write us off after we blow it. Like wrecking a car, God assesses the damage and sees that our value is worth the repair. God's grace is greater than all our sin (Rom 5:20). One reoccurring characteristic of all of God's servants is that they are all sinners and those He uses repeatedly are the ones who confess and repent of their sin. The fact that your life in a mess today can be a history lesson if you respond properly to your failure. Psalm 51 says "Have mercy on me, wash away my transgression, my sin is always before me, I have sinned against you oh Lord, create in me a clean heart, restore the joy of your salvation."
Here are some lessons that I am learning about failure:
1. Everyone fails. Broken lives are universal.
(Rom. 3:23, Is. 53: 6, I Cor. 10:12)2. The church is a community of failures who have been forgiven. The church is not a group of people who have it all together. C.S. Lewis once said, "think of me as a fellow patient in the same hospital who, having been admitted a little earlier, could give some advice."
3. There is great risk in relationships, and there is a tremendous possibility that someone else's sin will hurt us. Relationships open us up to pain. God took a great risk in creating man, knowing full well the extent of pain that man would bring to Him. (I Cor. 6:9-11) I am so glad God took the risk.
4. The tendency is to run, hide, and try to avoid people once we have experienced this pain. This will only limit our joy in serving and make us bitter passing this on to people that we love. (Heb.12:15)
5. Our God is unbelievable and takes broken lives making them new again. (II Cor.5:17)
