Forty Days Without FearSample

OVERCOMING FEAR OF FAILURE Part Two

Tattoos are permanent but bruises are temporary. When it comes to failure, we need to understand that it is not a tattoo, it’s a bruise; a one-off event rather than a fixed label to define our lives. The fact that we fail at times does not make us ‘a failure.’ 

It means we tried, and the key is to get up and have another go! We can only do that if we allow failure to teach us and grow us, rather than define us. This way, when we try, we win or we learn, but we never lose. 

The biggest heroes in the Bible are people who failed time and time again, but God continued to use them because they didn’t give up trying. 

There is so much hope in today’s verse. To be aware of a failure yet be able to keep focused on the comeback is a beautiful thing. Winston Churchill said, ‘Success is to keep failing without losing enthusiasm.’ 

In life we will have some small, and some epic, fails. Some we forget in a day; others we carry around for a lifetime. The question is: Do our failings make us stronger and wiser, or do they make us fearful to try again; stopping us from taking a risk, or stepping out?  

When it comes to our walk with God, we are all works in progress. We are all on a journey, and failures will happen along the way. Let’s embrace them, grow from them, and not allow them to hold us back from where God has called us to go. God hasn’t called us to be perfect. He’s just called us to not give up!

Action: Think of a failure and write down what we learned from it. How did God meet us in it and redeem it for us? Have we let ourselves off the hook for it? Believe what God says about us and keep going!