Failure might not be such a failure after all...

If you were to ask me what I wanted, really wanted and I was going to be honest, I think I often want, really want my life to be easy.

If I had my way, everything would go my way...without a whole lot of effort.

To put it another way, when I look at what I wish for, I find that I often wish for success.

And you know, I'm not sure that desire is wholly wrong. After all, things are going to be easy in heaven. And I don't really think that when we go to share the gospel or teach we should want people not to understand and want people not to be impacted.

Success, ease has got a whole lot going for it.

But the thing is, so does failure.

It's funny, we fear failure so much. We don't want things to be difficult. But spiritually, failure can bring all sorts of blessings. Difficulties, God can use them to take somewhere we've never been spiritually.

For one thing, failure it can humble us.

Self-righteousness and pride are probably the most difficult sins to kill. They are especially difficult to kill when things are going well. The truth is, there's hardly anything like a big old failure to help you in the war against these sins. In that sense, we can kind of glory in our failure because as we think about our failure, it reminds us of how desperate and needy we really are.

It keeps us sane.

After all pride is really a form of insanity, isn't it? Insanity is thinking you are someone you are not. Pride is thinking you are someone you are not. Failure, it can help rid you of some of your delusions.

Failure can free us.

I don't know about you, but I'm so prone to go back to the I've got to earn my approval with God way of living and thinking. Failure reminds me how foolish and hopeless that attitude really is. It frees me up to just enjoy the work of Christ. It reminds me that God loves me not because of how great I've been but because of how great Christ has been.

Sometimes I feel like my heart is constantly looking for anyone or anything to trust in instead of Christ. I keep wanting to bring the smallest little work to God and show him how great I really am. Failure, it strips me of all that and forces me back to the one person I should be trusting in in the first place, my great and precious Savior Jesus Christ.