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"Making the Most
of Failure"
by Graham Cooke |
What we think about God is the single, most important thing in the world. How we
perceive Him will dictate how we live our life. How we see ourselves in relation
to Him will orchestrate all that we are and do in this world.
We live in a success-driven world. So, in particular, seeing any failure in relation
to the heart of God is absolutely vital. God is love, and the nature of that love
must be the driving force behind everything that we do or attempt.
God is not human. He is the sum of everything. He is not just the Creator of the
world - He is the Creator of all things, including love. He does all things well,
including love. His standard for everything is excellence. The benchmark for success
in the Kingdom of God is so high no one can reach it without His input. And yet
He chooses mostly failures to represent Him.
"For you see your calling, brethren, that
not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
But God has chosen the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, and God has
chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen,
and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no
flesh should glory in Hs presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became
for us wisdom from God - and righteousness and sanctification and redemption - that,
as it is written 'He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.'" (1 Corinthians 1:26-31
NKJV)
So it's official. God loves a failure!
"He Does
Not Need to Be Seen in the 'Right' Places with the 'Right' People"
He did not want the beauty of His nature and the glory of His kingdom solely to
be represented by the great, the good, and the clever. He did not want a Who's Who
of humanity to portray His own magnificence.
He does not need to be seen in the right places with the right people. Jesus was
criticized viciously for hanging out with the very people that society detested.
He chose to become despised and rejected. God does not have an image problem.
He chose people who had a history of failure. He picked people who had a history
of not learning and who repeated their mistakes continuously.
God chooses people who were despised as being stupid, by people who should know
better. He accepted people who would require lots of training just to be normal,
let alone successful.
He chose them because He wanted to love them in such a way that they would always
be safe and whole...whether they were successful or not.
He chose them so that His love for them could heal them of their foolishness. He
has a wonderful capacity to enjoy us in our weaknesses. He has a plan to make us
successful through failure.
We can fail successfully or we can fail badly.
To fail successfully, we need to know who we are in Jesus.
"Our Mistakes Are Already Covered"
We are in Christ, and He is in us. The Father has a plan for our personality as much
as He has a design for changing our character to make us more like himself. A big
part of that plan, therefore, is to love us in exactly the same way that He loves
Jesus. We are not loved when we succeed in Christ. We are loved fully because we
are in Him. God loved us powerfully when we were lost in sin.
We fail successfully when we realize that our mistakes are already covered. No matter
how well or badly our life is going, we learn to live under the smile of God. Know
that in the love of God we cannot fail. We can only make mistakes, and every mistake
has already been covered by the cross.
Where were you when Jesus died? You had no existence. All our sins and mistakes
were in the future, and they were covered by that one incredible act of sacrificial
love. All our past, present, and future sins and mistakes have already been covered.
Our future has been secured in the love of God. Shame is not on God's agenda for
us. He allows us the wonder and joy of repentance - literally "to think again,"
to think differently, and to become what we think about.
"Loving Learning Enables Us to Become Wise and Also Beloved"
We fail successfully when we discover that God wants us to love the learning that
exists in every situation. All forms of accountability are about loving the learning
that is present in every circumstance. That learning produces the fruit of self
control, which in turn guarantees lasting change.
God knows that when we do things for the first time, we learn how not to do it.
Loving the learning in every situation enables us to become wise and also beloved.
Wise - because we learn from our mistakes and grow. Beloved - because our sense of
acceptance comes from being in Christ and not from our ability or performance. Therefore,
if we fail at something, we can still grow in the love of God. The joy of repentance
and the beauty of God's unchanging nature guarantees forgiveness and acceptance.
"God Does
Not Get Disillusioned With Us"
We fail successfully when we realize that God is not even remotely embarrassed by
our weaknesses. He defends us to all our detractors. He is not ashamed to call us
brethren. We are in Christ and cannot be condemned (Romans 8). The One who loves
us the best, knows us the best. God does not get disillusioned with us because
He had no illusions in the first place!
We fail successfully when we allow ourselves to be comforted. Our mentor is the
Holy Spirit who helps us to laugh at ourselves. He is the Comforter sent to lead
us into all truth. When we are embarrassed at the truth of our current mindset or
behavior, He comforts us so that we are not paranoid about screwing up. Then He
helps us with the learning. Every test is repeatable. We cannot fail the tests of
God because we get to take them again…and again…and again, until we pass. Even in
the consequences of our action, the love of God reaches out to cover, protect, and
nurture us in our wounded-ness.
The Biggest Thing We Get to Learn
The biggest thing we get to learn is that God loves me for me! Not for what I can
do. God's love helps us to relax about ourselves. The grace of God is given to us
to enable us to feel loved when we mess up. God's grace enables us to feel good
about God and, therefore, to have mercy on ourselves and others. We are a work in
progress. No one condemns the artist of an unfinished picture. Instead we look at
what is there, and we picture what it could become. We wonder, we imagine, and we
are excited by the possibilities.
In my weakness I am lovely to God. It's the sheer beauty of God that sets me free
to be loved outrageously. He allows us to fail when He could have prevented it…maybe
because He wants us to see how much we are loved when we can't do anything right.
He gives us freedom to fail, and His intention is to show us that we are still His
beloved. His love for us is not based on how well we do. We desire excellence because
He is excellent. No wonder then that David said, "This one thing I ask…that I may
dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. To behold the beauty of
the Lord and to (think about Him and all that He is) meditate in His temple." (Psalm
27:4)
In failure we can understand how lovely we are to the Lord. That is failing successfully.
"Does He
Allow Us to Fail?"
We fail badly when we imagine that failure should not be part of our inheritance,
when we believe that failure is not a part of God's plan. Does God cause us to fail?
No. Does He allow us to fail? Obviously. Does He use our failure to improve our
relationship with Him? Everything God does is relational. Every circumstance can
be turned around so that we discover the height, depth, length and breadth of God's
love.
When we hit the heights, God's love is present. When we hit the depths of despair,
sin, and ugliness, His love covers everything we hate about ourselves. In the pit
of depression God's loving kindness builds a stairway to recovery. No pit is so
deep He is not deeper still. His love is high enough to lift us above everything,
deep enough to rescue anyone from anything, long enough to last for eternity, and
broad enough to cover every failure.
Choose to Look
Into the Face of Jesus
We fail badly when we choose not to look into the face of Jesus. In failure, God
always moves closer to us. People distance themselves from failure and failures.
Not so with God. His heart beats for us. He has given us a Comforter so that we
can feel His heartbeat. In recent times I have gone through some of the most painful
things in my life, but I have discovered the Comforter afresh.
My current failures do not haunt me because the Holy Spirit has exorcised the ghost
of shame and dishonor. I am comforted. I am learning. I am the beloved of God. My
name is Graham, and I am a man greatly beloved of God.
He does hide from us occasionally, but that is to draw us into His realm. He manifests
Himself to us when He invades our time-space world. When He hides, it is to teach
us wisdom by revelation. God's hiddeness is always about us discovering deep truth.
(For further information see 'Hiddeness and Manifestation' from the Being
with God series.)
"God's
Glory Cannot Be Tarnished by Our Failure"
Failure is not so much falling down as refusing to get up once we have fallen. We
fail badly when we imagine that God is annoyed by our failings and will punish us
or make us pay for messing up.
In the process of discipling us, God has budgeted for our failure. Our failure cannot
diminish the Kingdom; therefore, it cannot diminish us. In failure the Father budgets
to be to us exactly what we need at that precise moment. I Am is with us. Intentional
love is present, and it is more lavish than we can imagine. His love can be so extravagant
that it picks us up and makes us want to try again.
God's glory is not enhanced by our success nor can it be tarnished by our failure.
God is simply above all of that. What if most of God's glory is derived from people
who are astonished and amazed to be loved so fully in the face of their own inabilities
and weaknesses? What if it is part of our own glory in the Lord for us to be loved
so wonderfully when we are at our most brainless and ignorant?
"He Is the
Same Whether We Succeed or Fail"
My own failures are many. My capacity for weakness on days seems undiminished. I
am an embarrassment to myself, and yet, I am loved so wonderfully. There is perhaps
one difference that my experiences with God have given me. I no longer weep tears
of shame. I cry tears of joy and wonder. I am amazed by God and His power to love
me. He makes all things work together for good. I'm not much of a challenge to His
genius and creativity.
We can discover God just as much in failure as we can in success because God never
changes. He is the same whether we succeed or fail. We will all fail at times. We
must learn to do so more successfully!
God's love makes us free to fail… Fail in a way that makes you whole and makes the
Lord smile!
Graham Cooke
© 2004, Graham Cooke
*U.S. ORDERS ONLY PLEASE
We are excited to be partnering with Graham Cooke in making these journals
available to you. The proceeds from their sale go to support several missions
projects very dear to Graham's heart that he is involved with. These missions
are:
- Orphan village development in Rumania, Nicaragua, Kenya, and Uganda
- Leadership training in Nicaragua
- Rescue mission in Bombay (for Nepalese girls sold into prostitution)
- Working with 'send a cow' organization helping villages in rural Africa
- Translation services to produce books and training resources in Poland,
Hungary, Philippines
- Developing pastors, evangelists, leaders, and teachers in the Underground
Church in China
- Church planting in underdeveloped countries
- Developing musicians and worship leaders in India
Thank you for purchasing these materials. I am sure you will be blessed as
you are being a blessing to these missions.
U.S. ORDERS ONLY ON THIS BOOK PLEASE. AT THIS TIME WE ARE UNABLE TO SHIP
OUTSIDE THE U.S. (Orders made for this book outside of the U.S. will be
rejected. We're sorry for the inconvenience.)
To donate by regular mail, use this
address:
Elijah List Ministries (Now a
Non-Profit Ministry)
528 Ellsworth St SW
Albany, OR 97321
or call: 1-8.6.6-881-0477 or
1-541-917-0484
If you donate $15 or more to Elijah List Ministries,
we will send you our current tape of the Month NO_CHARGE, as a token of our appreciation.
Any amount over $15 will be tax deductible.
Permission is granted (and you are
also encouraged) to reprint these articles in hard copy form, as well as sending
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Thank you and blessings, Steve Shultz,
Publisher, The Elijah List http://www.elijahlist.com
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