Successes and Failures

Two weeks ago I had a realization. In my car on the way home from the office I was turning over some events that had transpired. On one hand, we are getting a lot accomplished in the life of Round Lake Christian Church and this feels good. It feels like God is at work, we are moving in His Spirit, and our eyes are focusing on the light of Christ. However, I found that in some areas, my wife was unhappy. I might not be accused of being negligent, but I certainly could be doing better. On one hand we are succeeding at RLCC but on the other hand it feels as if many times these successes come at the expense of my family.

That same week a member of our church body went to be with Jesus. She was 89 and had loved Jesus very much. I was able to spend time with the family and prepare for the memorial service. It was a great opportunity for ministry. However, I neglected to inform a family in our church who was having a baby shower on the same day at the same time at the church building. It was shaping up to be quite an odd experience, what with a baby shower and memorial service on the same day. Again, success with the memorial service, failure with the baby shower.

So on the way home I'm thinking and this realization comes to me. "Every success in life requires a failure in some other area. And every failure in life means there is success in another area." It was both a sobering and uplifting realization. I am not perfect. I live and die by the grace of God. Even when I have blinders on and think that all is well, I am still a sinful human being. The war for my heart is not over, I need to continue to endure to the end. No matter how much success I may perceive at home, in the church, in my personal sanctification, in my devotional life, I need to realize that by nature I have still failed somewhere.

But the flipside is true as well. No matter how big my failures of sin and ignorance, there is always success in it. The success is that Jesus takes those things and produces perseverance, which produces character, which produces hope (check out Romans 5). Thanks be to God for failures because they give me a chance to recognize that I still need Jesus. He is my success, my hope, my great joy. I can say, like Paul, "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7:24-25)

Remember today that every success is a failure in some area of your life and that every failure is equally a success in another area. Trust God in that. Live in that. Grow from it.