Micah 7:8 AMPC
Rejoice not against me, O my enemy! When I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light to me.
How do you define failure? We should know, however, that the fear of failure is a relative thought. Failings come along when we decide we are a failure, based on how society defines success and how you measure it.
The enemy wants to use our mistakes to mock us, but God can use them to make us! If we let them, the people around us will define us by our failures. Don’t be held hostage by your bad choices; your failed attempts do not make you a failure!
Whatever stage of life we’re in, whatever work we do, cars, houses or other possessions we own doesn’t qualify us as successful.
We don’t all have the same talents and abilities. We can’t all do the same things, but we can all be what God has called us individually to be. I can’t be what you are, and you can’t be what I am, but we can each be all that God wants us to be. Our failures and successes should be measured on God’s standard and not man’s, not even yours.
God want us all to succeed, prosper, full of life and cheer, according to 3 John 1:2. He doesn’t want us to fail, He’s got good plans for us, so, our feelings of inferiority, inadequacies, inabilities is from our thoughts and nature. Satan cannot do anything to you without your consent, but once he gets you to think it, very soon he’ll get you to speak it and then do it.
Abraham thought he might be killed because of his beautiful wife Sara and was ready to allow Pharaoh and Abimelech individually to defile his wife, by claiming “she’s my sister,” He lied twice in Genesis 12:1020 and 20:1-18 to save his skin-he failed big time-he was wrong.
When Sarah told him to “go into her maid,” knowing God’s plan for him, he did and ended up with “an Ishmael”. The bible didn’t tell us anywhere that he argued with Sarah-he failed again because that wasn’t God’s plan for him in Genesis 16. Yet in God’s eyes, Abraham did not fail- he is called a friend of God.
By man’s standard, king David would be a failure, he was an adulterer, a murderer and a liar seen in 2 Samuel 11, this is an epic failure, but he was quick to genuinely repent and chase after God-yet to God, he was a man after God’s.
Paul who wrote half the New Testament was a murderer and a terrorist seen in Acts 7:57-8.
Peter, even after Christ warned him, still denied Jesus but Peter’s failure didn’t exclude him from Christ’s plans. On the contrary, Peter is the first of the twelve that Jesus appears to in Luke 24:34
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and Jesus will be failures in the eyes of man but not to God.
If you’re looking back and measuring your life by man’s standard, remember God’s goodness to these examples and be encouraged that He sees you not as the world or yourself. Forget the past failures and look excitingly to what the Lord have in store for you, He’s got a perfect plan for you in Jeremiah 29:11.
You are not a failure, rise and don’t allow anything or anyone to keep you down.
Shalom