|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5, ESV)
When we fail — It’s not an “if” but a “when” we fail. A quick AI search reveals abundant witticisms on failure. . .
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. (Henry Ford)
I’ve not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. (Thomas Edison)
Failures are fingerposts on the road to achievement. (C.S. Lewis)
Examining my life, I think that I passed Edison’s 10,000 failures about 20 years ago!
There isn’t a direct Greek word translated as “failure” in the New Testament, but there are seven Greek words that indicate failure. These Greek words are translated as sin, disqualified, cease, forsake, stumble, blame, and feeble.
Let’s define failure as sinning that disqualifies us, causes us to stop and forsake our pursuits, and in our stumbling, we blame ourselves and others and, too often, feebly quit God’s assignments.
In my failures, I’m glad that Paul writes Romans 5:5, “Hope does not put us to shame”! I’ve found that Biblical hope eliminates shame — which is often my (and yours too) signatory emotion from failure.
Shame magnifies our mistakes, and it causes quitting, blame, and sin. But hope gives us permission to try again. As Paul writes. . .
For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:24-25)
Hope is the opposite of shame, as it allows a vision of the future beyond our failures.
Besides Scripture as solace for my inadequacies, in recent years, I’ve listened to Cory Asbury’s song The Father’s House. Some lyrics. . .
Sometimes on this journey, I get lost in my mistakes
What looks to me like weakness is a canvas for Your strength
And my story isn’t over, my story’s just begun
And failure won’t define me ’cause that’s what my Father does
More lyrics. . .
Arrival’s not the end game, the journey’s where You are
You never wanted perfect, You just wanted my heart
And the story isn’t over, if the story isn’t good
A failure’s never final when the Father is in the room
Cory Asbury explains why he wrote this song. . .
It was in the middle of a tour I was on, and my soul was just tired. I was weary, feeling broken, jacked-up, weak, messed up… all the things that we feel as humans. I just sat down at the piano, and a lot of times, for me, music is therapy. It’s the time where I just pour out my heart before the Lord. And all of a sudden, this one phrase came out ‘You never wanted perfect, You just wanted my heart.” I realized in that moment that it wasn’t about me having it all together, even in the midst of weakness and brokenness, it was just about offering my heart in that space.
Let’s guard our hearts during our failures!
As Cory concludes in his song. . .
Check your shame at the door
‘Cause it ain’t welcome anymore
Ooh, you’re in the Father’s house, yeah
Amen!