Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Failure Is Never Fatal

There are many things that hold me back from pursuing all that God has for me, and none of them originate from outside of myself. All of these obstacles can be reduced to one thing and one thing alone, I am afraid that I will fail. I am not sure how this fear got put into my system of thought, but it is there in great measure. It would be easy to blame it on someone or something else, however, that would not be fair or appropriate. When it comes down to it, it is my heightened fear, and decreased level of faith.

What happens when we fail?
My first thought to the question is, all is lost. I tend to be an all or nothing type of person. When I fail, and I have ample opportunity for research data, I begin to think I have single-handedly sidetracked the work of God in the world. Talk about pride. I become convinced there is not redemption available due to my failure. The reality these are my thoughts not God's. I cannot rule out the role of the Enemy in amplifying those thoughts. What I do know is that it is not God who is accusing me, or condemning me. I am not sure how exactly God reacts to our failure, but I have to think it is a lot like Jesus responded to Peter... grace and love.

I am convinced that failure is part of life. If we never experience failure, I think we are missing out on the fullness of life. Many great lessons are learned through failure if we allow them to teach us. Failure is not the end of life, unless we accept failure as the final outcome.

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