EXPECT FAILURE

One of the greatest revelations we can ever hope to have about ourselves is not our strengths, but our weaknesses. Charles Haun always said, “show me a man that knows his weaknesses and I will show you a man who is going somewhere in God. It is our weaknesses that define our real character, not our strengths. It is our weaknesses that detail our potential and ability in God not our strengths. We should know that every Christian who is called by the LORD to know Him in His victory, nonetheless, a Christian who is full of confusion any doubt and one who has failed (sometimes many times) in this deeper desire to know the LORD. In fact we may get the impression that the LORD no longer helps us in prayer as He once did. We may even feel we are losing a great deal of time and making no progress. Confusion and perplexity are bound to follow. Nonetheless do not stop and do not let anyone even someone who is older in the faith keep you from pursuing a deeper relationship with your LORD. I have known people (so called) “older in the LORD” than I who give advice that sounds right, feels right, looks right, but in the end the advice given was wrong. Remember in God if it walks, sounds, looks, and tastes like a duck be careful it may be a chicken. What appears in the natural is not what things are in the spiritual, so too with our walk with the LORD. What seems right (sound advice and makes good sense) in the LORD often times are the direct opposite too what God wants for our lives. Remember, the LORD is calling us to a walk of faith in His divine presence; with a simple vision of our LORD and with His intense love toward Him, like a little child would have toward its mother we must cast ourselves into the gentle, yet stern hands of our LORD. Such a relationship, especially in times of perceived failure, is easy. It is also the most secure relationship we can enter into with Him. The level of relationship we are seeking is a relationship free from a wandering imagination and from reasoning. Both of these are too distracting and can get us involved in speculation and introspection, especially during period of failure and I promise you my friend walk with the LORD long enough and you will have them, God will see to it. Often in the beginning of our Christian quest God will introduce us to the school of loving knowledge about Him and the school of the internal law knowing ourselves. But then He will bring us into darkness and dryness thinking we have failed or missed it. We can understand darkness, but why dryness? Dryness seems foreign and strange to us. Ah dryness for the exact reason He introduced us to His love, to draw us to bring us near to Him. Yes dryness and failure draws us near to Him as does encounters of love and touches of unseen realms in the spiritual. The LORD brings dryness because He knows so well that it is not by any means of our reasoning nor our efforts that will draw us near to Him. Nothing we can do will ever draw us near to the LORD. No nothing! Our efforts will not bring us to understand His high and exalted ways. How then will we learn His ways? By humble resignation to God’s will. This is where we all must begin. Noah is a perfect example of this. He was called a fool by the world (us too if we truly desire to follow the LORD) and later when the flood came they found themselves without a sail or an oar. In all of this Noah walked in darkness, he walked by faith alone. In darkness, in the wilderness, and alone is the place is where a Christian comes to know and depend to lean on the LORD. Where do we get such strength? In the wilderness! Where do we get such power? In the wilderness! The wilderness is the making place for power, strength, and patience. After some time in the wilderness Solomon said, “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” (Song of Solomon 8:5). Only in the wilderness (not in the palace halls or well watered plains) did Solomon learn (a process of dying to self, loneliness, separation, and ridicule) to lean on his beloved. Now please do not think Noah understood the mind of the LORD, oh no he did not. As much as possible Noah believed the words God spoke to him, but after that Noah operated in patience. We should pay little attention to dryness or failures, oh expect them they are coming to say otherwise would be down-right foolish. We must never give up our desire to know God even in the face of the dryness or failure that comes our way. We must walk with a firm faith then rest in patience, dying to our self and to all of our natural efforts to know God. Remember, the LORD cannot err (willfully lead someone astray) nor does He intend anything towards us, but that which is for our good. Wow what a revelation! When things go bad against us and we cannot see God’s intentions we often think we have failed, but not so. Expect failure, but in the failure we must always be patient looking for the way out. Paul in 1 Corinthians tells us, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 13There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” (1 Corinthians 10:12-13) When temptation, loss, failure, etc. overwhelms us our first reaction is to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, to suck it up, or even blame someone else; we see that in verse 12, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” We are strong in our own strength and might, but when this happens take heed because we are on our way down where loss and failure abides. The place where God dwells is in a humble and lowly place. If we want to be strengthened and lifted up in failure and loss that is only given by God to the humbled. James tells us, “But he giveth more grace (Strong’s #5485, that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness: grace of speech) Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. 9Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. 10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” (James 4:6-10) Not grace for salvation, but “grace” which “affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness.” The way up is first down! The way out is down! “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.” Who wants to be afflicted, mourn, and weep? The one who wants to be lifted up by humbling themselves. Sadly when in failure and loss we concentrate on the loss and failure trying to overcome in our strength and ability instead of doing what Paul told us to do, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” With every temptation and failure God provides a way of escape. We must not focus on the temptation and failure, but look for the way of escape. It is there right before our eyes. The LORD does not want us to fail He wants us to learn this is why He gives us a way of escape each and every time, but we seem to get stuck in failure time and time again, why? We are not looking for the way of escape. Where does the escape come from? It is somewhere deep within us. Therefore we must come to Him silent, believing, suffering, and with patience. With confidence press on! Rest in Him and be guided by His hand. This is better than all the good intentions and goods in the world. If our pursuit of Christ is pure that is sufficient reward. A seed is laid in the ground. Then it seems the seed is lost, but afterward when spring comes that seed grows up and multiplies. In John we read, “And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. 24Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except (no other way) a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. 25He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” (John 12:24-25) Here Jesus is talking about being “glorified” now we would have thought it was time for Jesus to be exalted, given a name above all names, but that was not what Jesus was talking about. Jesus was talking about going to die, going to the cross. There is a spiritual principle in operation here, death before glorification. Like that corn of wheat or the seed laid in the ground Jesus had to die to be fruitful, well the same divine spiritual principle is for us today. We too must die, experience loss, temptation, and die to be fruitful in the LORD. Jesus is the master and is the servant (us) greater than the master? God does the same thing with us. The LORD deprives us of comfort and even of understanding. Furthermore we see no spiritual progress in our life. In a way there is none, but yet let enough time pass and there is enrichment that has been added to us far beyond our hope life will take root and spring up. We must never look down upon ourselves if we cannot achieve what we have set out to do in our pursuit. Persevere in patience. Trust in the LORD’s infinite grace as though we were blindfolded. Do so without a great deal of fanfare, thinking, or reasoning. Place our lives in His kind, paternal hands, resolving to do nothing except what is His divine will and good pleasure. My friend expect failure it is coming again God will see to it, but with the failure comes a promise of an ever abiding love from the LORD and a way to escape, are you looking? Written by David Stahl