Failure is very discouraging to us as humans. We build our hopes, dreams, and life around our successes. Our emotions are intertwined into the success or failure of situations in our life. We make our break our success, right? Maybe not. What if God sets us up for failure in our life? You probably think that I am crazy. Why would a loving God make us fail?
I remember setting goals in high school. If you are one of my high school teachers reading this blog, you might want to go on to the next blog. I am about to throw everything that you taught your students about setting goals right out the window.
So as a high school student I hated when we talked about goals. I hated coming up with goals, I hated thinking about goals, I hated everything about goals. The way I am wired, I take it one day at a time. Instead of having a goal, I had dreams. My dream was to be a successful business owner. I didn't need to set goals on how to get there, in fact, I didn't even write a business plan. The plan so to say was in my head. No one else needs to see my dreams because they were my dreams. Goals were just hurdles that got in the way of my dreams.
So after high school, I started my own business on a dream. No goals, just dreams. I worked my butt off for many years to reach what most people would call success. I make mistakes along the way in my journey. One of the ways that I became successful was because I quickly recovered from my mistakes and didn't make the same mistake more than once. My life was great or so I though.
After many years in business, God decided to step in and shake up my life. In essence, he set me up for failure. He knew that I was spread too thin. I had to work a lot of hours and wear many hats in my life. If I were not constantly on the heartbeat of my business, something would always go wrong.
Proverbs 19:21 NASB “Many plans are in a man’s heart, But the counsel of the Lord will stand.”
God set me up for failure.
Like I said, God knew that I was running myself too thin. He gave me just enough rope to hang myself with as the saying goes. Long story short, my wife got sick, and I had to quit showing up for work every day. When you are not constantly around to babysit people they start to run amuck. It is almost like the inmates running the asylum. I couldn't manage my business and my family at the same time, so I had to choose. God set me up for failure so that I could see what was critical in my life.
God wanted to change the course of my life. He let me push myself so hard that I had to make a choice in my life. Scale my business back and take care of my family or lose everything. Naturally, I choose my family, Though the process of reorganizing my life, God created a new me. He wanted me to fail at something that was not important so that I could succeed at what was important. I have more time to spend with my family, and I have a great walk with the Lord. Before I changed my course, I didn't rely much on God. He was there as a last resort. Now he is there for everything in my life.
Why does God let us fail?
Part of Gods plan may be for you to fail in your life so that he can do something better in your life. At the time, we don't always see what is best for us. God knows what we need to do and what we should be doing. Instead of looking at failure as negative, look at it in a positive light.
Sometimes we need someone to trip us to keep us from going down the wrong path. Isn't is great that we have a God that loves us so much that he is willing to stop us from going the wrong way? Let's rejoice in our failures because better things lie ahead.