Redeemed Failure by FullFill

DESCRIPTION Failure is a gift to you and a gift to others. When offered as a gift to God, failure becomes available for His redeeming touch.

​​“This isn’t what I wanted at all!” Tears streamed down my five-year-old niece’s face. She had just opened the first of two birthday presents that I had for her. Unfortunately, she picked the practical gift first—socks. “I wanted a Barbie Swan Princess—not socks!” She threw the socks to the floor and ran from the room. My brother stood to follow her. His eyes pleaded with me to be patient with his immature five-year-old.

He didn’t need to worry. I knew just how she felt. Three and one-half years ago, I received a gift that I didn’t want. My husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving our marriage. My mind and heart were flooded with fear, confusion, and anger. I wrote books on relationships and taught marriage seminars. I literally screamed at God, “This isn’t what I wanted at all!” I felt like a big, embarrassing failure. I understood the lament of the Psalmist: “I called out to you, God... When I’m ‘dust to dust’ my songs and stories of you won’t sell. So listen! And be kind! Help me out of this!” (Psalm 30:8-10, The Message).

​God did kindly grab my flailing arms and whisper, “Wait, Sharon, I have something for you—even in this failure.” Since then, I have been in the process of learning that failure is a gift. Yes, you read that right—it’s a gift. Perhaps you find yourself receiving this strange gift. Maybe your ministry is floundering, your work has been misunderstood, your family is falling apart, or you are struggling with depression or anger. I ask you to consider this time of self-doubt, loneliness, or embarrassment as a gift. Failure is a gift to you, a gift to others, and when offered as a gift to God, it becomes available for His redeeming touch.

​A Gift to You

Failure is a gift to you because it reminds you in no uncertain terms that you are not God. I entered ministry with a zeal and certainty that God had equipped me for certain tasks. As my life fell apart and I came face to face with my failures, I realized that I had relied almost entirely on my own abilities to get things done. Self-effort will only get us so far and will inevitably result in exhaustion, resentment, and mistakes. Failure reminds us that we are not supposed to do this on our own. We need God. Failure tells us that we are not in control. There are things that we cannot fix or manage. We can wallow in self-pity or contempt for others, or we can let it go, allowing failure to teach us that there are people, circumstances, and things that are way beyond us.

Abraham, the “Father of Faith” floundered in failure—doubting God, making sinful choices, hurting himself, his family, and ministry. God concludes the telling of his story in the New Testament with these words:

If you’re a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don’t call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it’s something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift. (Romans 4:4,5, The Message)

​A Gift to Others

Failure is a gift to others as well, because it tells them that you are not God. We often join a ministry because we are looking for something or someone to save us—from our loneliness, hard marriages, or struggles in parenting. Many well-meaning men and women have put their trust in ministry leaders—not only to be disappointed, but to miss true salvation. For salvation never comes from the side. It always comes from above. The best that we can offer one another is to walk beside each other along the way. If your ministry limped along this year with small numbers, mishaps in programming, or dissension among the leaders—take heart—you and your ministry partners need God. Just as you cannot save yourself, you cannot save others—no matter how much you love them and long for their health and happiness.

Failure suggests that you are human and that you must rely on someone greater than yourself. Ironically, as others watch you walk humbly in your failure and deepen your reliance on God, they will be drawn to you even more! Face it, when we are struggling we really don’t want to hear from someone who has it all together and never struggles themselves. As we express need, disappointment, satisfaction, and joy—all the while hanging on to God’s every word and his strength—we offer a priceless gift to others. We remind them (and ourselves) that we are related to each other through need, sweat, and tears, and that we are connected by the love of God—a love that surpasses all our flaws and foibles.

​A Gift to God

When we offer our failures to God to ease, erase, or undo, we allow the Redeemer to redeem. What is most often involved in offering failure as a gift to God is waiting. Waiting after a ministry event flops, while others are gossiping about us, or when we clearly see our own glaring mistakes is hard. It might even seem impossible to believe that something good could be born out of something so painful. But you’ve done this before. The Apostle Paul explains:

The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us, it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs . . . That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us [failure?]. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. (Romans 8:22-24, The Message)

​While you wait to see God’s redemption, allow “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” to be born in you (Galatians 5:22-23). That way, this gift that you did not invite becomes the unexpected means to fill you with the fruit of the Spirit. You can receive failure as a gift and simply say, “Thank you.”

Blessed are the available.
Blessed are the conduits,
the tunnels, the tools.
Deliriously joyful are the ones
who believe that if God
has used sticks and rocks
to do His will,
then He can use us. ​- Max Lucado

Written by Sharon A. Hersh

Life’s Storms by Bryant Wright

DESCRIPTION Are you going through a difficult storm? Jesus said to expect storms, but we have good news: if we'll trust Him, we'll survive.

They cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed(Psalm 107:28–29, ESV).

By now, you have probably figured out that life is not free of challenges. Difficulties and even tragedies are to be expected. As a matter of fact, Jesus told His disciples, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NIV).

Whenever you face a storm, your first urge may be to scream, “Why?” Certain storms do come into our lives because of our own sin, but many occur when we’re right in the middle of God’s will. We’re not doing anything wrong. We’re doing what God wants us to do. Certainly that was the case for the disciples. Jesus told them to get into the boat and row across the Sea of Galilee. They were obeying Jesus when they suddenly found themselves in a horrific storm. It was so bad they thought they would not survive. But they did. With Jesus’ help, they made it to shore.

Are you going through a difficult storm? Worried you are not going to make it? Jesus said to expect these storms. But there is good news—Jesus helps us through the storms. If we’ll trust Him, we will survive.

New Normal by Boyd Bailey

DESCRIPTION Accept your new normal as an opportunity to adopt new ways to know God.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:18-19

New normals are a test of our trust in the Lord. They call us to get on our knees in prayer and cry out to our Heavenly Father. They are transitions we go through in life when we move into new seasons: health challenges, a job transfer, a new church or an empty nest. New normals are more difficult because it is the first time we have experienced these realities. Patience, flexibility and trust facilitate adjustment to a new situation. Adapting to change and focus on God is necessary.

For example, a close friend may move overseas or to another part of the country. Since you are geographically divided, you now keep up by email, calls and visits. Or, if you’ve lived as a single adult for years, but are now married, you focus on the person of your dreams. Hence, friends from your past life don’t receive the same attention as your best friend, your spouse. A new normal in relationships is hard. If you try to be everyone’s friend, you risk becoming no one’s real friend.

Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets. Luke 6:26

Make the best of your new normal by seeing God in the middle of your circumstances. Whether adversity or euphoria, either is an opportunity to draw closer to Christ. Accept new normals as your friend not your enemy.  It is a nudge toward the Lord, not a wedge between you and the Lord. Our Savior Jesus Christ specializes in doing new things. He makes a way of hope in our wilderness of worry and streams of faith in our wasteland of fear. See your new normal as God’s new thing.

What is your new normal? A boss who is more demanding? A child who is pushing the boundaries of their freedom? Life after divorce? Life after a loved one’s death? Financial limitations? Relational stress? Abundant resources? More opportunities than you ever imagined? Steward well what you have, so the Lord can trust you with more of His blessings. Accept your new normal as an opportunity to adopt new ways to know God. Learn how to lean into the Lord. Your new normal is the next step in following Jesus. Perceive it, believe it, receive it, embrace it.

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. Revelation 21:5

Prayer: Heavenly Father, by grace and through faith, I accept my new normal as Your normal. 

Hold on to the God Who Holds It All Together by Jud Wilhite

DESCRIPTION The one who holds it all together is holding me and my problems. He can hold onto us no matter what we face.

This week I’ve been thinking about how the size of our God often determines the size of our trust. The Bible describes Jesus as bigger than anything I can grasp: “Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together” (Col. 1:17, NLT).

This is remarkable stuff. Peter O’Brien says, “Paul’s teaching about Christ as the goal of all creation. . .finds no parallel in the Jewish wisdom literature or in the rest of the extant Jewish materials for that matter.” Some translate the word “for” as “toward”, which makes the sense even more dramatic: “All things were created by him and toward him.” Everything began with him and will end with him.

Jesus holds it all together. I went nerdy and did some digging on this idea. It seems that there is a force holding all things together. Some scientists call it “strong nuclear force”.

Take an atom as an example. Ok, most of us don’t remember much from science class but stay with me, it will be worth it. Some people say opposites attract in relationships, right? It’s the same in science. If something has a positive charge it is attracted to something with a negative charge. But the crazy thing is that the middle of an atom (its nucleus) is made up of a bunch of protons along with some neutrons. This is a recipe for disaster because the protons all have a positive charge and should repel one another, kind of like putting a bunch of lawyers together in one room. But instead of repelling they stay together because of a “mysterious” energy being supplied from outside the atom.

Crazy huh? If this energy to help the protons stay together was not supplied from outside most atoms would become one explosion after another. This “mysterious” force that holds an atom together is very strong and not something to be messed with. If something disrupts this, like nuclear fission, an atomic bomb is created. When an atomic nucleus losses this mysterious force for just a second and splits it emits several hundred million volts of energy. So when the Bible says Jesus holds all things together this is like. . .big stuff and serious power!

What I’m reminded of today is that the one who holds it all together is holding me and my problems. He can hold onto us no matter what we face.

If he holds the stars in place, he can hold you in your depression. If he holds the moon in orbit, he can hold you in your financial struggle. If he holds the atom together, he can hold you in your family. If he holds the water in the oceans, he can hold you in your marriage troubles. If he holds the snow on the mountains, he can hold you in your sickness. If he holds the sun in the sky, he can hold you in your job loss. If he holds the leaves on the trees, he can hold you in your bankruptcy. If he holds the continents together, he can hold you in the stock market crash. If he holds the lightning in his hands, he can hold you in your home foreclosure. If he holds the sun, he can hold you in the death of a family member.

Hold on to the God who holds it all together!