Yesterday, as I waited in line at Target, I heard a mom desperately trying to entertain 4 small children as she attempted to find her wallet in an oversized purse, probably filled with all the things moms’ of 4 small children need.
“But what if I’m on the naughty list?” the brown-eyed girl questioned her mom yet again, her hair braids shaking from side-to-side.
“Well, you’ll just have to work hard to get off of it, that is, if you’re on it.” I could hear the exhaustion in her voice and knew all too well, exactly how she felt.
The young girl’s older brother (around 10) whispered in an audible voice, “You mean the failure list!”
The comment prompted a stream of tears from the little girl. I wanted to grab the mom and hug her tight and take her to get a mani-pedi or something; but, all I could do was stand there.
The failure list.
I’ve been on that list, and I bet you have too. Those well-made plans that never quite worked out. That project. The commitment with a failed follow-through. The business venture. The test score. The flubbed job interview. The season of losing. The…well… you get the picture.
My mind raced with the litany of past failures in my own life – times I just knew God was behind me – pushing me- backing me up- making sure I was successful. I mean, “If God is for me, who can stand against me?” And then, the doors closed.
Philippians 1:6, “ being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Sometimes we do not see the bigger picture. The one where God uses our struggles, our pain, our failures – yes, I said it – our failures – for a far greater purpose than worldly success. It is difficult at times to accept that God would lead us down a path to failure. And the truth is, He doesn’t. Because our failure is possibly the very thing He needs to put us in a position to be successful.
In the words of Thomas Edison, an American businessman and inventor, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that do not work.”
Maybe today you feel you belong on the Failure list. Maybe you’ve felt that way all year; but, let me assure you, God didn’t make failures. And while it may seem you are on the farthest path from success that you could be, remember Who makes your paths straight.
The young girl’s mom calmed her down. The two-year-old attempted to stand in the buggy. The ten-year-old seemed to lose interest in teasing his sister and quickly reverted to the candy aisle while shoving his little brother to the side. I wanted to tell her there wasn’t such a thing as a failure list, not in God’s eyes, or to grab her brother by the back of the neck and give him a piece of my mind, but I just smiled at her.
I did however maybe whisper in an audible voice in the direction of her older brother, “I have seen that naughty list and it is pretty long…”
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26
