"Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts."
Winston Churchill
"If you are going through Hell, keep going"
Winston Churchill
I find that over the last few years I have become almost a motivational speaker when speaking with other brothers and sisters in the faith. I think it is because the church has bought into that very American idea that says everything in life should be easy; and when it is not, it is a result of some lack in our own lives. In retrospect, I think, it could also be from a false religious idea that came about through an institutionalized misunderstanding of life that crept into the church during the dark ages. In any case, I find that we as a body have embraced the idea that life in Christ means nothing bad will ever happen to us and if it does its our fault somehow. I wont lie, most of the time it is our fault in some way; but, the Bible clearly states that God is bigger then this. You see we all fail in life at times. This in no way means we have to keep failing in life. I believe that God made a way for us to be able to live free from sin in this life not just the next. You see, to me if God only cared about the next life then He is a poor tactician and we know he is not. In any case, failures we may be; but, we in no means have to stay there.
I love to study about people who have come before me that have risen above their own personal failures to truly change the world. Among my favorites in Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant and Winston Churchill. Neither of these men were what we would refer to today as Golden Childs. In fact, all of these men were just the opposite. Churchill may have been more of one then Lincoln; but, he was still a failure who was almost drummed out of political and public life by his failures as the head of the Admiralty for Great Brittan during WWI. Lincoln failed at almost every election he ran in; and when he finally won the presidency, it split the nation. U.S. Grant failed at everything he tried his hand at and only went back to the Army because he could not succeed at anything else. In the end, he won the Civil War for the Union and eventually became president of the United State. What do all of these men have in common? They all refused to give up. They refused to see themselves as nothing more then failures. They continued to believe it was possible for them to overcome no mater how dark the night got nor how badly they had failed.
Here's the deal then, you have failed. So what! Wait a minute here; you mean it doesn't matter that I just fell again. Well, I am glad you asked. No it does not. I can not say this anymore strait forward then I just did. The only way that it maters is if it has become a consistent character issue in your life and if you are unrepentant of that issue. If you simply do not care about God and want to continue sinning, then by all means death is your portion; but, if you are genuinely repentant of this issue and want freedom from it then you can have it. Get up, dust yourself off and keep moving. You don't have to let failure become your identity! The Bible says in Romans 8 that ALL things work together for our good. In my dictionary all means exactly that, all. So all even encompasses our failures. After all, if God is not even big enough to overcome our simple little failures then He really isn't much of a God is He? We talk about God being bigger then our circumstances and our enemies, but He is also bigger then us. He is bigger then our mistakes, our wrong turns, our sin and our failures. If we really love Him and if we really are the ones called according to His purposes then HE will work all things together for our good. (Just a little clarification, the ones who are called according to His purposes is everyone who excepts Him and runs after Him. So that means you honey.)
The only way we can truly fail in this life is if we simply stop trying. Any creature will die if it loses the will to go on. Maybe it is hard for you to have faith right now because you have failed so miserably. Maybe just getting out of the bed you have made for yourself is the most difficult thing you have ever had to do. I feel for you I have been there; but, I got up, and I still am. Everyday I get up anyway and hope. You see you can not have faith without hope. Faith is the evidence and substance of the things that are hoped for. Faith is not possible without hope. Hope is simply the possibility that something can happen; where as, faith is the substance and evidence of that thing. God is bigger then the bed you have made for yourself and in Romans 8 he lets us all know that His response to our self made situation is not, "you made your bed now lie in it."; but rather, "Take My hand and let Me show you that I am bigger then this situation you have made!" In Hebrews 12:1 Paul encourages us to set aside those sins which so easily beset us and to run on after the high call of God. Just like us Paul knew what failure was like. He knew what it was like to have to overcome his own mistakes. After all, he was a serial murderer of Christians and now he had become one. No one trusted him; in fact, it took a miraculous act for God to get someone to go to Paul and heal his eyes. Maybe you are there right now. Maybe you are in a place where it is going to take a miraculous move of God to even get people to start trusting you again. Well then, you are in the same place Paul was after his conversion; the right place for God to move for you. I leave you with the words of Winston Churchill, "Never Give Up! Never Give up!"
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