Failure Within Ourselves

Failure: What comes to mind when you hear this word?

Mine are defeat or heartbreak because when I fail, I become broken. The anger I have at myself is something I'm working on.

What if our failures were used for good? What if we allowed God to transform them and use us in the process?

Daily we fail but from these failures, we can learn and grow. Failure as a wife, in motherhood, in friendships, ect. These last few years has been challenging but in many ways God used my failures for growth. I've had relationships change drastically. Even though it's hard to accept some of these changes, they have helped me grow. My heart and my mind have transformed in certain areas that I didn't even know needed to be transformed.

I'm my hardest critic. When things go wrong, the one I get upset with is myself regardless if it was really my fault or not. We have to remember, when we do something and it goes wrong, it isn't always our fault.

To understand our failures, we must ask ourselves questions: What could I have done differently? Did I respond/act the right way? After asking ourselves these questions and examining ourselves, we must accept, forgive/ask for forgiveness and move on.

Christ never failed. He was tempted but unlike us, He didn't give in. Matthew chapter 4 is a great chapter that shows us where Satan tempted Christ. Several times we see Christ refuse the temptation with Scripture. We can follow Christ in this act and use scripture as well.

We can and we will fail. We are human. We can however, learn and grow from our failures. If we do so, it shows our maturity in Christ and in our christian walk. This is when we see our failures being transformed and used for good! A quote I once heard said this, "Act as though it were impossible to fail". With Christ in us, it will be impossible for us to fail, according to His will.

Philippians 3:12-14 KJV "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethern, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

This chapter that Paul wrote is amazing. These few verses we are looking at clearly states Paul's imperfections but still he follows as Christ is holding onto him. We need to do the same. He speaks on forgetting the past and moving on. I believe we are to remember what we've learn from our failures but not to dwell on our failures themselves. Move on and do better the next time. We are running our own race. One against ourselves and Satan, not each other. So run, fail, get up and move.

*Our failures can either be our biggest defeat or our greatest transformations!

~JuneAnn Miller