When you feel like a failure…

Do you ever just feel like a failure? Here’s some hope for your hurting heart: we already have victory through Christ. Now, let’s learn to walk in it!

Do you ever just feel like a failure?

I know I do.

Maybe it’s a problem you’re having in parenting or something in your career?  Maybe it’s your marriage?  Lately for me, it’s been things like taming my temper or being consistent with a healthy diet and enough exercise.

I know what I NEED to do, but I just don’t always do it.

I even WANT to do it, but it’s still undone.

And feelings of inadequacy and failure make it even harder to reach the goals I’m grasping for.

It’s enough to make me want to give up sometimes.

What about you?  Do you just want to throw your hands up sometimes and scream, “I’ll never succeed!”

I know how you feel, and so does someone else.

One of the things I love most about Scripture is the fact that we are given so much wisdom, such wonderful examples to follow.  We’re told that Jesus was tempted like us in every way but was without sin.  He knows the struggle.  He felt the strain.

But I’m not talking about him.

I’m talking about a man who wanted to do it right but kept getting it wrong.

Someone who sounds a lot like me.

Maybe you can relate to his words:

“I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing….So I find this law at work:  Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin that works in me. What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:19-25)

Do you hear the desperation?  Paul knew what it feels like to face failure.  He knew what it’s like to take two steps forward and one step back.  Throwing his hands up, he asked for rescue from the Redeemer.

And so can we.

I don’t know what you’re struggling with today, but I know the same Redeemer who rescued Paul reaches out to us as well.  He can take our meager offerings and turn them into miracles.

Because it’s not about us.

With him, our little loaves and fish can leave a lasting legacy.

Our obedience, inconsistent though it may be, opens the door for his omnipotence.  He puts treasure in jars of clay, y’all.

So how can we walk in the victory he’s already given us?

First, remember:  “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

We might be convicted about something, but because of Christ, we are never condemned.  That voice you hear whispering “failure” in your ears today.  It’s not his.  He says we are more than conquerors, and he means it.

1 Corinthians 15:57-58 says, “But thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm.  Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Do you hear that?  Your labor is not in vain, and neither is mine.  So stand firm.  If you’re struggling with the feeling of two steps forward and one step back, just stand firm right where God has put you and keep being obedient to him.

Do not “grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we DO NOT GIVE UP.” (Galatians 6:9)

So, today…keep going.  Shake off your shame.  You are clothed in righteousness, and you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength.