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Keep Hope Alive
Hopelessness begins with a thought that manifests in a feeling that can infiltrate and destroy your spirit. Once hopelessness has found a home in your spirit it will impact everything you see and do. Unfortunately, when your hope is shaken your faith is impacted. And without faith you cannot advance any further in the kingdom of God. So fight to keep your hope.
Many of you are simply going through the motions of life. The initial drive and determination you once had to believe God and to stand on His Word are gone. Yes, you are getting up in the morning, going to work and coming home; but that is it. You are only doing the things you need to do to make it, but you are not going beyond that. You don’t have the energy or the spiritual strength you once had. When you hear or read a scripture that tells you “you can make it” or “God will make a way,” you are not excited because you feel as if you heard it before and that the word does not work. But you must pick yourself up and believe again. You can not stop believing and trusting in God and his Word. Your season and your time is coming.
Fear of Failure
No one likes to fail, however failure can help to set the stage for our greatest victory, if we learn to use it to our advantage. What does this mean? Well, when we resist the urge to let a fear of failure prevent us from trying again, or when we use failure as an opportunity to seek God and to re-strategize our lives, then we have placed ourselves in a position to allow failure to make us better. For example, in St. Luke 22: 62, we find the Apostle Peter, the man who would be God’s mouth piece on the day of Pentecost, weeping bitterly after he had just denied Jesus Christ for the third time. Yet, despite that event Peter did not allow his failure to permanently stop him. Instead, Peter wept, repented, and continued to follow Jesus Christ.
Please understand that there may be many times in our lives in which we will experience failure, but because of Jesus Christ, failure does not have to be the end of the matter. We must always remember, that as we continue to trust God in the midst of whatever is going on in our lives, things will work out for our good. But if we allow a fear of failure to keep us from trying again, we may never know the full potential of Jesus Christ inside of us. Allowing a fear of failure to control our lives will cause us to hide from responsibility, run away from challenges, or to just give up totally. Nursing a fear of failure can cause us to spend the rest of our lives playing it safe, and trying to protect ourselves from being hurt. But God never called us to play it safe. So if God is saying that you can do something and your fear of failure is saying that you can’t, then your feelings are lying to you, and that lie must be dealt with by the Word of God. The truth is, you can do all things through Christ which strengthens you! The truth is, you are more than a conqueror! So allow the truth of the Word of God to control your thoughts and your actions. You don’t have to hide or run away from your failure because He in you, can handle anything that you will face.
Failure can also provide us with an opportunity to identify those thoughts and feelings that we have about ourselves, that are detrimental to our spiritual
growth. Let’s be honest, some of us need to experience situations in our lives that cause us to examine our selves and to make God ordered changes. For example, before the 22nd Chapter of the book of St. Luke, the Apostle Peter never thought that he would deny Jesus, but under pressure he did. Similarly, we may look at someone who is doing something wrong and say to ourselves “I would never do that,” however the reality is we really don’t know what we would do given the same situation. But failure has a way of surfacing the pride and secret feelings resting in our hearts that if allowed to grow unchallenged would hamper us spiritually. For instance, do you give up when you fail or do you keep going? Do you become angry and blame everyone else for your failures? or Do you seek to learn from your mistakes? Most importantly when you fail at something what kind of words do you say to yourself?
Understand that it is not necessarily the failure, or mistake itself that causes the most damage. Instead, it is our perception of the failure and how it makes us feel and think about ourselves, that can damage our lives the most. Because our perception of our self is manifested by the words that we use, we must be sensitive to the impact that our words have on our lives. Listen, we can’t go through life thinking negatively and verbally degrading ourselves, without experiencing negative consequences to our self esteem. For instance, when you fail at something do you automatically say things like “I am so stupid” or “I can’t do anything right?” Unfortunately, if the words that you use to describe yourself are negative and are not challenged by the Word of God, they will keep you from living the kind of life that God wants you to live. As we are reminded in
Proverbs 23:7 “For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
So we must allow the Word of God, not our negative thoughts to shape our feelings and response to failure. This does not mean that we ignore problems or look at life through rose-colored glasses. Instead, we must learn to balance our emotional response to failure with the Word of God. We must learn to put failure in its proper place and resist the urge to use it as an opportunity to verbally beat ourselves up.
St. Matthew 12: 35 lets us know that,
“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak,”
so if I secretly spend my time telling myself how bad
of a person I am, then I really don’t believe that I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. If I view myself as an accident waiting to happen, then I really do not believe, no matter how many times I say out of my mouth “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” that I am in fact fearfully and wonderfully made. Listen, it is one thing to quote scriptures, but it is another thing for that scripture to become a part of your heart. Remember, if God says that you can, but everything within you is saying that you cannot, then there is a hindrance in your thought pattern that must be brought before Jesus Christ in prayer and eradicated with the Word of God.
Unfortunately, many people see failure as an indictment or personal mark against them, instead of as a tool that can be used to strengthen or to edify them. The truth is, failure in one area may just be an indicator that change may be needed in that specific area of your life. Failure is not an indicator of your self-worth so don’t view yourself as a failure just because you made a mistake. Do however, look at those areas in your life where you have experienced failure and identify what role if any you played. Then if possible, take steps to decrease your chances of experiencing failure in that same area again in the future.
For example, did you fail to get a certain job because you don’t have a GED or high school diploma? If so, you need to get one. Have you been fired from a job because you where constantly late? If so, you need to make a change. Don’t let past failures keep you down. Seek God for a plan to turn your failure into success and when He does give you the plan, don’t let a fear of failure stop you from implementing it. Now the plan that God gives you may involve other people, but He never designed a person to do what only He can do. For instance, while the government and other people may all play a part in our lives, our hope can’t be in the government or in people. Your Lord wants to fellowship and commune with you about what is going on in your life. HE wants to give YOU a plan to make your marriage better. HE wants to give YOU a plan to overcome any limitations that you may be facing.
It may be true that you failed at something in the past and it may be true that you will fail at something in the future. But failure is not an indicator that you will never be able to succeed, or to be victorious in the future. Unfortunately, some people feel that they are destined for failure so they never try to succeed or to even expect that things will ever work out for them in life. Sadly, people who expect failure come to view mediocre or substandard behavior as the norm, and don’t demand more from themselves or from people around them. But a mindset that expects defeat and thinks that things in life will never improve is one that is based upon a lie that is not substantiated from the Word of God. Remember, God said first to the children of Israel and now to all who would believe on Him,
“I know the thoughts that I think toward you … thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11).
God can do beyond whatever we can ask or think, but He just needs someone to believe Him. So draw closer to Jesus Christ, read the Word of God, and begin to develop a relationship with Him. The deeper your relationship is with Him, the more you will come to know Him and His love for you. Remember, with a God-ordered plan, failure is just a stepping-stone to greatness. So don’t let a fear of failure limit your life and cause you to think small or to play it safe ever again. Amen!!
Meditation Scriptures
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28
Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. Proverbs 16:3
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Proverbs 23:7
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Psalms 51:6
Questions
- When you fail at something what are the first thoughts that come to your mind?
- How is a fear of failure preventing you from living a full and rewarding life?
- Identify and meditate on some scriptures that can help you overcome fear.
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