So, you feel like you’ve failed God?
Now, what do you do?
I can’t tell you how many times this topic has come up, in some form, in conversations I’ve had. Those exact words are not always used but the idea behind them; the idea that this person has failed God… This idea is there buried under mounds of either regret, confusion and sometimes even pain.
There is a frustration present that pulls and tears at their heart causing them to believe that in some form God is disappointed and angry with them and they must do better to earn His favor.
This mindset often forgets the verse in Romans, “But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!”
Failing God By Failing Others
Often the failure of others is aligned as also failing God.
I think we have all failed at one point or another. How we approach failure in life often paints a picture of how we view our failures overall… Even toward God.
For instance, some people see failure as a natural part of growing. We learn to walk by falling down. We build businesses by taking risks and sometimes failing, but we get back up. We learn from our mistakes and create amazing works of art out of many previously failed attempts.
But, then for others, failure is seen as a consequence rather than a process. Falling down is a result of not walking correctly in the first place. Taking a risk in business, that fails, means the business is dead. We learn not to make mistakes by avoiding them all together and great works of art come out of much previous success.
Sin Police
Now, I want to clarify, I’m not saying failure through sin is just something we simply need to see as a process and not worry about it. Like Paul says, we do not sin so that grace might increase. We should not take sin lightly. But on the same note, we don’t need to allow our view of God to be defined simply as being the sin police. He gives us grace in our weakness and that grace is sufficient for us.
The fact is there is no way we will make it through this life without failing in some form or fashion. It’s how we view those failures that determine how we feel about our relationship with God.
The Gift Of Grace
God is not out to crush you because of your failure. He came to set you free through the redemption of His grace. Grace that you did not earn in any way. That grace is a gift from a loving Father who desperately wants relationship with you. Grace is His means of rescuing us from ourselves.
In Proverbs 24:16 (ERV) it says, “Good people might fall again and again, but they always get up. It is the wicked who are defeated by their troubles.”
God is a god of getting back up. He took on himself our sin, carried the weight of it, paid the penalty for it, laid down His life because of it and then got back up redeeming us from it. God, demonstrated through His Son His heart for us to get back up.
The Good Father
We fail but being made righteous by His grace, we get back up because His grace reaches to the depths of our brokenness and calls out like a good Father, “take my hand you don’t have to do this alone” and pulls us up out of our muck.
You have not failed God in any way that His Grace can not reach into and pull you out of your brokenness.
Your failures are redeemed and recreated into something new. All you have to do is accept His help.
Revealing The Heart
The very notion that you might “feel” like you have failed God, shows a heart in a desperate desire for His help through grace.
A heart that truly failed God, wouldn’t even care that it did.
So, you feel like you’ve failed God?
His grace doesn’t see it that way. Reach up my friends and don’t spend one more minute wallowing in your doubt of God’s endless love for you. His love is deep and His mercy wide. He has given you grace upon grace already given and that’s more than enough.
