Fortunately Failing

As I look back at my life for over the past 20 months, I realize I have never failed so much or have been rejected in so many ways in all my years before.  Indeed, I have had hard times, but I have never experienced so many difficulties in such a long stretch. I have named it and claimed it with no positive results, so I have tried whining and writhing,but God has not been moved. Seriously, I would have expected God would have worked things out by now.  I know, I know...God is always on time and my ways are not His ways.  I got it, but that doesn't make my circumstances any easier. It seems that God's timing is light years away and His ways, well... are not quite the ways I would do things.

"How presumptuous of you!"one might think.  But, I presume I am not the only person whose pride has been probed by problems, or whose self-worth has been severely seared by a series of setbacks.

I comprehend the bigness of God and that He can do whatever He pleases, even though it may cause me pain.  However, I am not pleased with injurious circumstances engineered to eliminate my ego.  Undoubtedly, God knows best and remains righteous, even when I am facing the tsunamis of life.  The floods have come and washed away a lot of ME, and what is left is an open space where God can rebuild my life, repair my heart and restore my soul.

I am understanding the process of pain as it pushes out my pride and humility comes and creates its home in me. As I read Alice Smith's Beyond the Veil, I am learning to embrace my failures more, knowing that God has a plan for my life and He will get the glory in the end.  Ms. Smith recalls God asking her if she would be willing to fail for Him. This is against our culture in which we are driven to succeed and be winners.  But in God's Kingdom we will have to fail and be laughed at by others sometimes in order to gain His prize.

If I have totally surrendered my life to God then I would be willing to fail for Him. Nevertheless, I wish He had asked me just as He did Ms. Smith.  I would have loved the forewarning, yet knowing me I would have resisted and may even have denied it was the voice of God, and would have considered it as a trick of satan.

Ms. Smith quoted Jonathan Edwards as saying "Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil's reach as humility." Then she gave her own formula for getting humility - "Nothing is more effective in developing humility than failure."

God cultivates humility in me through my failures and rejections, so that He keeps me safe from the devil's wiles while becoming more like Him.  God is skillfully maneuvering me to a higher level spiritually.  My destitution is designed for me to desire God more and to destroy the devil.  Therefore, fortunately I am failing and in God's time I will fly.