Is failure to be feared?

 Failure- is it to be feared? 

  That thing that lurks around every new bend in the road proving my inability. 

Failure- is it to be dreaded? As though every meeting with it means I become it? 

Live life to avoid it, and we miss the point. Isn’t life to be lived with Jesus? 

Live life as if it doesn’t exist, and we find ourselves sorely disappointed when we meet it again. Is all of life supposed to be perfection? 

But failure- doesn’t it prove a point? 

  One we’d never learn if we never failed? 

  One we’d never understand if all were always right? 

For failure proves our need. 

It proves again that our self confidence is not enough to carry us through and that this fallen world still can pull us down.

It can bring us to our knees and force us to lift our eyes off of ourselves in the search of One who cannot fail. 

If we were brave enough, we might embrace failure as a friend. 

For failure teaches us what success cannot. 

Our rightness and righteousness come from Another. 

And He defines us by a different standard -not right or wrong- but what He has proclaimed about us. 

When I trip on failure, instead of letting shame berate me and define me, I have been set free to reach for the righteous cloak of Christ. 

For He is more than enough righteousness to cover me, and He has declared me as righteous as He is. 

Failure- can’t it be turned around for good? 

Indeed, He who works all things for good can use our failures to deepen our faith and dependence on the One who never fails. 

Failure is the very thing that He can turn into deep, steadfast faith… because of His grace with which He lifts us back to our feet and steadies us as we follow Him. 

Failure, if we let it, can remind us to put our trust afresh in the One who cannot fail. 

Romans 8:28 

1 Corinthians 1:30