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Growing Through Failure
Something every human being can relate to is failure. Many of us have believed for years, "You are a Christian, you aren't supposed to fail", " Christians are supposed to be perfect" which is completely unrealistic, but boy are we good at beating ourselves up over every failure even though they are inevitable! At New Life Women's Center we have been learning about failure as a Christian and how to change our mindset from condemning ourselves to growing through our failure! Our manual for life, the Bible, has tons of practical things to say about how to respond to failure!
The first thing we need to look at when we fail is the root problem in our life, the belief we have that caused the failure. Think of an iceberg; from the boat all you see is a fairly small chunk of ice sticking up out of the water, so you think, "no big deal! It can't cause much damage!" But under the surface of the water the iceberg is 9 to 10 times larger than what you see above! Just like the tip of the iceberg, so are our surface problems, the things everyone can see, smoking, drinking, cursing, addictions, and failed relationships! The part under the water represents what is going on inside the person which is usually much larger than what everyone can see; such as, our attitudes, patterns of thinking, bitterness, fear, rejection, shame, control, etc.
Another thing to look at when we fail is, did we actually sin or did we just make a mistake. We don't need to feel guilty and repent before God if we didn't break one of His commands. For example, I studied to the best of my ability for a test but still failed the test. Even though I failed, this is not sin because I gave it my best! God gives us guilt to lead us away from sin and the first thing to do when we fail by sinning is to follow 1 John 1:9; ask God to forgive you and repent, which is more than just words. You need to mean what you say and make a conscience choice from your heart to not repeat the act and God has promised to forgive you!
If you have sinned against someone else, the next step would be to go to that person and ask for their forgiveness as well and regardless of their response, whether good, bad or indifferent, now your heart is pure before God!
Always remember that no failure is too big for God, whether it is an affair, divorce, jail or addiction to lying, being lazy or lack of self discipline, God can always help you find a way out of your failure! It may not be the easy road and their may certainly be earthly consequences but keep moving ahead, find the root causes or the deeper issues, take responsibility, turn to your instruction manual, the Bible, for some practical advice and learn from your failures! God never gives up on us and He is ready to help! You will discover that inner peace and joy are possible after failure when we choose to do things Gods way!
Contributed by: Cassandra Saffle