By Chris McMahan
‘Failure!’ The Enemy cried out as I lay on my bed the other night. Satan likes to remind me when I’ve fallen short. Tears filled my eyes as I mulled over the events of the evening’s neighborhood BBQ party, recounting all the lost opportunities I could have used to be a stronger witness for Christ. Thankfully, the sure, soft voice of my Savior interrupted my thoughts with the truth that “there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).” I may have felt like a failure in that moment, but the moment didn’t define my identity -- that is defined by Christ alone. My feelings of failure quickly turned to genuine sorrow and repentance for not being bolder. I asked the Lord to not only forgive me, but to show me why I had not been a more courageous witness for Him.
Failure from our vantage point is a lot different than God sees it from His perspective. His goal, even before we are His in Christ, is to save us, not condemn us (John 3:17); He sees every broken area in our lives as an opportunity for a grace repair. We see failure. He sees our future. We feel shame. He holds out mercy. We feel as though we’ve fallen on our face, but He extends to us the chance to ‘fail forward’ in our Christian walk through repentance and restoration.
The next day a missionary couple who was getting ready to go to a remote village in Papu ...
