A Confident Heart by Renee Swope

Author:Renee Swope
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781441214270
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2012-02-19T06:46:27+00:00

Failure Doesn’t Get the Final Say

It was almost as if I realized for the first time how very critical I had become—not only of my kids, but of myself. I was letting my failures have the final say about who I was and what I could do. But God offered me the same grace and mercy He’d given Gideon and Peter.

God saw beyond who I was to who I could become. Knowing this was His perspective gave me the confidence to believe that I didn’t have to stay in this hard place. I didn’t have to let my failure define me. That day, I started letting God have the final say as my Father as I learned to better understand His perspective of me as His child.

Don’t we all struggle with feeling like a failure in one area of our lives or another? For some, it’s our past. Our childhood was not what we thought or hoped it would be. Or we’ve made devastating choices we wish we could erase. Maybe it’s our career. We were overlooked for a promotion at work or a position at church, or we’re not using the valuable education we worked so hard to gain. Maybe we’re not married yet, and that feels like a failure as everyone around us has moved on to the next phase of life. Or we can’t have children and wonder if God thinks we’re just not cut out for parenthood.

Some of us feel like we’re too young or too old to make a difference. Perhaps we don’t feel competent to face the future with possible health or financial challenges. Being an adult child brings lots of opportunities to fail. It can be hard to be as available as our aging or long-distance parents want or need us to be.

Sometimes it’s not the big things—it’s the smaller, everyday things. How often do you hear doubt whisper, You’re such a failure, when you make a dumb mistake, say something you regret, argue with someone you love, let a friend down, dishonor your husband, or fall into a pattern of sin? How often do you beat yourself up with accusing internal dialogue, saying things like, I always do that. I keep saying I’m sorry, but I’ll never change. I’m constantly disappointing someone.

When our thoughts heap condemning statements like these on us, we get buried in discouragement and defeat. Failure gets the final say. We become our own worst critic, and once again Satan loves it. Whether you are saying these things to yourself or you’re repeating what someone else has said, once again they are exactly what the enemy wants you to believe.

It’s a downward spiral that becomes so familiar it’s almost easier to keep letting Satan have the final say instead of taking time to find out what God says. But we need to remember that accusation doesn’t come from God; it comes from our accuser. Scripture assures us that he will be completely defeated, but until then, he accuses us before God day and night (Rev.

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