Failure..Feel like giving up?.Do I have another chance?...

 

It was the qualifying heat of the 5000 m women’s heat at the Rio Olympics held in July this year. After several months of intense preparation, some of the world’s best female athletes were at the starting point on the race track to compete in this long distance race. As the race progressed to around 3000m with a few more laps left something unfortunate happened. New Zealand’s runner Nikki Hamblin and American counterpart Abbey D’Agostino had a collision on the race track which led both of them to fall on the race track. Abbey was able to get up get up quickly but Nikki lay on the ground. What happened next, surprised everyone. Abbey ran to Nikki and helped her to get on her feet. She gently said to her “ This is the Olympic race, Get up we need to finish this”. Although limping due to the fall, Abbey and Nikki progressed to finish the race at last. Surprisingly, they qualified for the finals based on petitions from both teams. Although, they didn’t win the finals, they were awarded the “Pierre De Coubertin” Olympic medal for displaying the spirit of sportsmanship which has been only given out 17 times in Olympic history.

Failure..! That’s the last thing we would want to talk about. Why talk about failures when we have a lot of better things to think about?. We have a human tendency to cover up failures and only portray success. That is what we see from the beginning of time in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve hid from the presence of God and tried to cover up their mistakes. But we see a righteous God who continues to pursue a sinful man even when all his efforts ended up in failure. We have numerous biographies of people in the Bible. The uniqueness of the Word of God is that it shows people just as they were including both their failures and successes irrespective of their background. The Bible doesn’t say that everything went right with people but it rightly shows the increasing human tendency to commit mistakes. We see that many men of God committed mistakes like Abraham, David, Moses, Elijah etc. There were many people who were big failures in life in the genealogy of Jesus Christ and even in the Hebrews 11 in the list of the heroes of faith. Why were they counted as righteous? Because God displayed His love for us while we still sinners, while we were still without strength so that the power of God’s grace might be displayed in our lives. It is the transforming power of God’s grace that we see in every situation. Where our efforts failed, where we ended up in failure, there we see the power of God’s grace empowering our weaknesses to strengths. We see ordinary people in the Bible who failed miserably but being used in extraordinary ways.

Elijah’s Example ( I Kings 19:4)

Here, Elijah had just completed a successful ministry at Mount Carmel. He was able to see Gods power and providence there. But we see here that he became afraid because of the words of Jezebel. I Kings 18 is filled with the Mount Carmel experience, the blessed experience of God showing his victory over the false prophets of Baal. He is in a higher spiritual ground right on the top of the mountain. But, in the next chapter we see a big contrast. Here, Elijah has run away from Jezebel and come to Beersheba, the desert. The lonely empty experience of the desert. What happened to the mighty Elijah?

He wanted to die. He thought of himself as a failure. We see how quickly Elijah has changed from being a mighty one used by God in chapter 18 to wanting to end his life in this chapter. The amazing thing here is God does not give up on him even when he wanted to end his life. God prepares food for him (v.6). He walks for 40 days and comes to the mountain of God in Horeb where he tries to hide in a cave having given up all hope. But still God never gives up on Him. He asked Elijah “ What are you doing here, Elijah.?”. God displays his power to Elijah on the mountain. He restores him back with his assuring Word.

Elijah could not see his life beyond the words of Jezebel. That was it. The queen of the land had decided to kill him and he was sure that will all her influence in the land he was going to be captured and killed. But we see that God had greater plans for Elijahs life. We often go into failure not knowing what the future holds . We are not to sit here and perish just like the others of this world. God had greater purposes still to be accomplished in the life of Elijah even when he had given upon himself. We might think that we are big failures. We have repeated the same mistakes over and over again. But , God wants to remind us that he wants to begin a new chapter in our lives. He wants to accomplish His purposes in our lives even when we find ourselves in the desert in Beersheba, in the cave disappointed of being a failure, running away from what God wants to do in our life. He wishes to bring us to Mount Horeb. He wishes to use us for the expansion of His kingdom. Today God asks us the same question he asked to Elijah in the cave, “ What are you doing here Elijah ?”. Elijah had a great ministry ahead of him. He was given the task of appointing Kings, anointing Elisha as the next prophet etc. Elijah was asked to come out from the cave and stand on the mountain. God wants to come out of our comfort zones and rise up. There are many ministries lying ahead for us. He wants to use us in ways we wouldn’t imagine. The question is Are we ready or Are we still in the cave of our life?

Some important realizations we need to understand regarding failures

We have an increasing tendency to commit mistakes because of our inherent sinful nature. (Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall- I Cor 10:11)

We may commit countless mistakes, but it is important that we rise up from our mistakes immediately (For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again-Proverbs 24:16)

God never gives up on us even when we fall. (Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the Lord upholds him with His hand- Psalms 37: 24)

God’s grace is sufficient to cover our failures no matter how far we have gone (In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace- Ephesians 1:7)
 

'Prone to wander Lord I feel it

Prone to leave the God I love

Here's my heart, O take and seal it

Seal it for thy courts above'

(Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Robert Robinson)

 God Bless you..!