Context For Failure

Headlines—Rush Limbaugh Hopes Obama Fails. That sounds pretty harsh and negative. Could the headlines be any worse? What if the front page of every newspaper declared: God Wants [your name] to Fail. Now that would really be extremely harsh and cruel. But can it be true? Does God ever want you to fail? What’s true about all headlines is that you must keep reading to hear the rest of the story.

Pastor Betters talked about how God creates a context of failure in our lives and society. The state of our nation and its moral decline is not too difficult to trace. The path to ruin in the lives of sports figures and other celebrities is even predictable based on their life choices. The truth below the headline that he was expressing is that anything that sets itself up against God is doomed to failure. When we try to satisfy our hearts outside the will of God, fulfillment escapes us. But this is not some sort of passive process on God’s part. God actually builds and superintends a context of failure around our lives that will point us and lead us in one direction – up to Him.

The difficulty for me, however, is when the context of failure comes when pursuing ‘Godly’ things. Often I don’t want to look too deeply when failure or disappointment occurs in my life. Why would God purposely want to stop me or allow me to fail? King David wanted to build a temple for God’s holy name. The prophet Nathan even gave the idea his full endorsement only to find out directly from God that He didn’t want David to be the one to build it. God gave David tremendous zeal to build the temple. David just didn’t understand his role.

The same thing may happen in our own lives. A person may want to start a children’s ministry, a couple may want to adopt, or a church may want to start a drug intervention ministry but somehow things just don’t seem to move forward. These things are great things. But what if it is not in God’s time, or if in the wrong location, or done for the wrong motive? God has a reason. Sometimes I’m so busy for God that I fail to see what He really wants. I plead with God, “Please tell me your will and I’ll do it!” The problem is that I sometimes approach God as if He is just an Information Center and I’m His robot. God is not interested in me accomplishing His ‘list’ as much as He is interested in relationship. It is in this context of failure that my heart becomes fertile to receive His wisdom and direction through the leading of the Holy Spirit. I no longer walk beside God but it is God who does the walking in me. It is in this way that God keeps me from all the negative press and He grabs all the headlines.

Bill McConomy