When You Think You’ve Failed

One of the toughest things to grasp during the past couple months is the thought that even when we give our best to something sometimes that is not enough. Our own effort of 100% can look exceedingly different than someone else’s effort of 100%. That doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of doing hard and tough things, it may mean it takes longer for us to accomplish something that others do not have as much difficulty accomplishing.

God has called us to be so much more than our failures. In fact, we can use our failures as testimony to what God can really do in and through our lives. We are not perfect beings, were never meant to be perfect beings. If we were, then there was no need for Adam and Eve to sin- they would be perfect, lacking nothing. If they wouldn’t have sinned, we wouldn’t have been able to know the love of our savior, Jesus Christ.

This is a full testimony that God has a plan in our imperfection, in our sorrows and disappointments. We do not have to carry this alone. Jesus bought and paid for our sins, imperfections, and shortcomings.

This has been a tough season in life for me, and by far not anything like the other seasons I have experienced. My life previous to this summer was completely different than before. I am going through a bible study, “Forgiving What You Can’t Forget,” and one thing the author Lysa Terkeurst writes is that we all have our own BC and AD: Before Crisis and After Devastation (Introduction, pg. XIII). My life before this summer was a catastrophe, to put it bluntly. I come from a broken family and home, broken relationship with my parents, and a seemingly cyclical version of poverty- whether it be family, friends, or money.

But God really showed me His provision over my life this summer when we plucked me from that situation after long and heavy prayers. One thing I am growing to realize is that while God answers some prayers and shows His provision, it doesn’t mean we just have an absence of another seemingly situation. Just because we are saved and children of Christ, doesn’t mean we will lack hardships at any given moment in our life.

There is a saying a lot of Christians speak of, “God gives His toughest battles to those who can withhold them.” This saying irks me, it’s a lie I used to believe. To me it says because we are in Christ, those of us will be given the hardest of battles. I used to believe two things: 1.) God was punishing me for something I had been or was doing, or for the sin of my family, and 2.) because I was going through tough battles, I would be blessed afterwards.

When our circumstances in life do not pan out how we thought they would, we try to find some answer or explanation to why it happened the way it did. In this case, God gave me these tough battles because he knew I would withhold them. If I claim this every time I was defeated, disappointed, or hurt that would be a lie. God may allow things to happen in our lives, but it’s not because we are His toughest warriors. Instead, I challenge our shortcomings and battles are the presence of God working in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

My toughest battles may look different than another person’s toughest battles. Just like my effort and energy poured into something may be different than the effort and energy of someone else pouring into the same thing.

I remain with faith God has a plan for my life. He doesn’t give me his toughest battles. Reality is everything that I go through is for His kingdom and His glory. Do not be washed to believe that God is giving you the biggest battles because He knows you are able to keep standing, rather praise the Lord that through all of Satan’s trials and errors, you are still standing and raising your hands to the King of our world.

Here are four pieces of scripture that relate to this:

Jeremiah 32:17 (CSB), “Oh, Lord God! You yourself made the heavens and earth by your great power and with your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you.”

Deuteronomy 31:8 (CSB), “The Lord is the one who will go before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or abandon you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.”

Romans 5:1-2 (CSB), “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”

Philippians 1:9-11 (CSB), And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approved the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteosness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.”

Prayer: