"All of us fail, but this doesn't mean that we are failures. We need to understand that failing can be a step toward maturity, not a permanent blot on our self-esteem...we don't have to allow failure to prevent us from being used by God."
-Robert S. McGee, The Search for Significance
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Failing can be pretty disheartening.
Or, maybe you just laughed at my statement and thought "That's an understatement!"
If you are a goal oriented person, and you love accomplishing things, setting goals, making schedules, and everything working out just right, then this post is for you; because this post was written by just that type of person.
I love making schedules, setting goals, seeing things accomplished and completed, and everything working out just as I planned, but it seems that most of the time...it doesn't work out that way.
I usually put too much in my schedule and get overwhelmed...but wait wait wait! That's the schedule! You must follow it because you made it this morning and it's faultless! Nothing is wrong with the schedule, something must be wrong with you. Yeah, you just witnessed my train of thought.
My schedules, more often than not, look more like a list of unachievable goals than a list of things I must (and logically can) accomplish that day. So it's no surprise that I've thought of myself many times as a failure.
But, just like every other time, I found that I wasn't the only human being in the history of mankind that was apparently unable to get anything done. I read The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee, and he gave me some answers.
"All of us fail, but this doesn't mean that we are failures. We need to understand that failing can be a step toward maturity, not a permanent blot on our self-esteem...we don't have to allow failure to prevent us from being used by God."
If God could only use perfect people, He would have created robots.
But He decided to create us. He created people that rebelled against Him, people that had a free will whether or not to obey Him. He created people that He knew would fail Him time and time again. Why?
Because He desired people that would serve Him because they wanted to serve Him. He wanted people that would obey Him because they wanted to obey Him. So He did it. And He got me, and I failed Him...right?
Well, God uses failures. Take that back. God uses people who fail. McGee makes it clear in this section that just because you fail (no matter how often) that doesn't make you a failure.
But as long as you are following after Christ, God can use you. He doesn't mind if you miss doing your math, or you forget to sweep the kitchen, or you are too tired to fix dinner and go out for fast food...He doesn't hold that against you. His mercies are new each morning. Each day is a new start. What happened yesterday...guess what? It happened yesterday. Its over, it's done, there's nothing you can do about it so quit fretting over it.
God's got it. God's got you. God will use you, if you let Him.
Don't let your feelings of failure grab a hold of you and smack you down to the ground. Smack your feelings of failure down on the ground and tell them how big and forgiving your God is.
In Christ our Solid Ground,
Buttercup
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