FAILURE

How can my failures be opportunities for growth?

God's Response:
A man named Achan had stolen some of these dedicated things, so the Lord was very angry with the Israelites.... Joshua sent some men to make a search. They ran to the tent and found the stolen goods hidden there.... Then Joshua and all the Israelites took Achan, the silver, the robe, the bar of gold, his sons, daughters, cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats, tent, and everything he had, and they brought them to the valley of Achor.... And all the Israelites stoned Achan and his family and burned their bodies.... Then the Lord said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take all your fighting men and attack Ai, for I have given you the king of Ai, his people, his town, and his land."
Joshua 7:1; 7:22-26; 8:1

Our Takeaway:
From what happened when Achan sinned, Joshua learned important lessons that you can follow: Confess you sins when God reveals them to you, and when you fail, refocus on God's grace and deal with the problems so you can move on. God wants the cycle of sin, repentance, and forgiveness to strengthen you; the lessons you learn from your failures should make you better able to handle the same situation the next time. You can tell what kind of person you will be by what you do on your second and third attempts.

God's Promise:
No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening - it's painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.
Hebrews 12:11

Big T's Thought To Ponder:
By a world standard we tend to associate "Failure" with personal defeat and/or weakness. We have been trained up by society to believe that if we fail, or should I say when we fail, the world brands us with a capital "L" on our foreheads and we are labeled as losers for life.

In today's culture, success is often judged on the basis of visible accomplishments of such things as wealth and social status, security and strength, public appearance and notoriety, power and influence, physical beauty and talent. Accordingly, failure is judged on the basis of the lack of these things. This perspective is not only distorted beyond measure, it adds an enormous amount of unwanted pressure and stress to our lives and it is all just a huge lie and let me tell you why.

For Forty Six years, I lived a performance driven & performance-for-acceptance based lifestyle and I was good at it! I was in constant fear of any type of failure in my life. Failure wasn't an option for me, I had the mindset that nothing would stand in the way of my success in the world. There was no sale too big or challenging, there was no amount of time that I wasn't willing to invest, there was no sacrifice I wasn't willing to make and no amount of anything I wouldn't risk to have worldly success.

It was a constant struggle and battle that took place both mentally and physically. "If I let up just a little bit then there is a chance for defeat and nonacceptance." And if defeat slipped in, there was an overwhelming opportunity for failure and if I failed, I would be seen by all those looking in as, not worthy... incapable of meeting the mark... couldn't cut the mustard... didn't make the cut... can't run with the big dogs...

Pressure, pressure and more pressure! Complete madness it what it was.

The only way I can explain it with any sense of reality of what it felt like, is to have you imagine driving a Ferrari and having the pedal pushed to the metal (0 -to-160 mph), and not having the option of breaks or bouncing off the sides of the road like the video games - this was real and this was my life. If I crashed and burned, I would lose everything! The business, the confidence and acceptance of my wife, my children, my mother and father, my friends... I loose the house, the cars, the boat, the world travel, the hidden relationships, the addictions, the toy and joys of this completely turned upside down, spiraling out-of-control life I was living... Failure? Not an option, after all what would I do without all this worldly success in my life? Blind, I was completely blind!

All the madness came to a screeching halt when I made the decision to invite Jesus Christ into my life and trust Him to take full control of it; to help me make sense of it all; to help me understand His priorities in my life; to help expose the lies of the world and reveal the truths of the His kingdom and to know the difference between the two; to restore peace and completeness into my life and to show me what success that matters, looks like - God did all this and more!

I am here to witness that I experienced all this world has to offers, all satan's eye candy -all of the notoriety, power, influence, wealth, status, self-indulgences that any person would ever need, want or could handle - worldly success without failure is emptiness without substance or hope.

It is failure that allows us to realize where we get our acceptance from, it isn't from our performance in the world I can assure you. What we do, does not determine who we are! We were all bought and paid for by our creator; Jesus Christ paid the price and In Him we can find our true identity and be confident of our complete acceptance without our performance - He loves us just for showing up! You see, it is who we are in Christ that determines what we do...

He created us, He delivered us, He sustains us, He had all the success on the Cross! He is our success and even when we fail, we are made strong and acceptable In Christ - He is the only One incapable of failure - He is our Way, our Truth and our Life and He loves us unconditionally!