I Even Fail at Failure

How do we respond to seeming failures when we were fairly certain that God was telling us to do something?

This is something that has really been plaguing me tonight. I mean so often we do things under the banner of God. We talk to people because "God told us to." We apply for jobs because "God told us to." We even throw our sub-par boyfriends and girlfriends to the curb because, well, "God told us to." But here is the problem with this...If God is telling us to do all this stuff, why does so much of it seem to blow up in our faces?

I can't tell you the number of times that I have been certain that I should talk to someone about something. I didn't even know at the point of starting the conversation what I was even going to say. Then, low and behold, I simply start talking about something. Generally, this something is a very deep something indeed. Often, in response to my very deep something I get a very angry something back. Or worse, I get a nothing back.

Should I then see these things as failures? Should I merely assume the worst that God has set me up to fail (Yes, I am assuming that God really did want me to talk to those people)?

This is where it gets sticky for me, and maybe for you as well. Failure is not always failure. I feel like an Eastern philosopher. Maybe God is doing something that takes time in that other person's life. Or here is a real ego-shatterer (Not a word, don't care)...we don't have magic words that will instantly convict someone to the heart. Often I have this thought that I am going to cut someone to the heart and instantly they will be changed. The problem with that is that it then becomes about what I have done, not God.

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:18)


God changes, not us. It would at least serve me well to remember that.