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PROGRAM D-8465
As I conclude this topic of recovering from failure, it may be that you are facing a failure of such enormity that you need help from others to analyze it correctly and recover. Remember, recovering from failure requires understand you’ve failed, but not for the purpose of dumping the blame on someone else. Your recovery hinges on admitting your failure, taking responsibility for it, and trying to discover how it happened in order to prevent it from reoccurring.
Once you’ve done these things, then the next step is to understand that Jesus has the power and the desire to redeem you from that failure and give you victory over it in the future. I believe one of our enemy’s most effective weapons against us is to keep us totally bound by our past failures.
Is that where you are today? Let me ask you this: If God can and has forgiven you and is no longer condemning you for your past failures, what right do you have not to forgive yourself? Is that not an arrogant attitude? After all, what did you expect from yourself?
I’m coming to the place where my failures don’t surprise me any longer because I’m learning just how totally weak and helpless I am on my own. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m not grieved by my failures; it does not mean that I take them lightly. Quite the opposite. But the more I get to know Jesus, the more I see that in myself I am totally unreliable and prone to fail.
However, the great and wonderful news is that because of Jesus, I can be victorious. Can you see that admitting you have failed and knowing how likely it is you’ll fail again drives you back to the one person who can keep you from failing? It’s one of those paradoxes of Scripture: When you learn what a failure you are in yourself, then you are forced to put your life in the hands of Jesus, who can strengthen you so that you can recover from past failures and avoid future ones.
Believe me, I’m living proof of his ability to do that, as there have been failures in my life which are considered by some to be fatal. But not by God! I can say with the Psalmist: “You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever” (Psalm 30:11-12).