A Prayer When You Fail Yourself - Your Daily Prayer - February 25

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A Prayer When You Fail Yourself
By Peyton Garland

Bible Reading:
“‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” - Isaiah 54:10 (ESV)

Listen or Read Below:

It will never be a question of if you fail yourself, but when. When you pick the impatient path, choose cross words, or neglect God’s guidance, how do you see yourself? That’s the question you must ask yourself to gauge the direction your heart and mind are taking. The answer will directly reflect how you plan to move forward as a friend, coworker, spouse, parent, and/or believer.

No matter how big or small we define life’s difficult circumstances, the things that happen outside our control, recognizing how we view ourselves in relation to the God who uses all things for our good is a crucial indicator for whether we allow the weight of the world to consume us or the hope of Christ to sustain us. It reveals if pride or shame will threaten to swallow our ideas of the One who preserves the soul. 

Regardless of the battle cries the world composes, what doesn’t kill you doesn’t always make you stronger. Apart from Christ, life’s hardest times mean little, and humans weren’t created to live with a little purpose. We weren’t hand-fashioned by the God who flung the stars to merely exist. God is too intentional to waste His children’s lives. 

When we forget how personal God is, how limited we are apart from Him, let’s consider basic biology. In the physical world, we cannot and will not live forever, so why would we think we could sustain our hearts and souls for this life and the next? What control do we truly have over our circumstances, and how much control would we truly want anyway, so long as we live in sinful flesh? Furthermore, in a fallen world full of mistakes and broken hearts, what fight would be worth showing up for without a God promising eternal rest and freedom on the other side? 

Friend, don’t allow pride to convince you that you can weather storms alone. Humans aren’t indestructible. In the same breath, accept that your failures don’t change your purpose. Shame can’t snatch the pen from God’s hand to rewrite your story. 

God shaped you in the womb, knowing you would be born into a sinful world. He knew your little toddler heart would be prone to tantrums, your teenage brain lured by lust, and your adult body worn by life’s consistent hardships. So when you do fail, because it will happen, you can’t believe the lie that it’s all over or that your worth has been belittled. Just as you can’t sustain your human body, you can’t sustain your soul’s worth. 

I’ve considered what my life would look like without my Christian faith. In my life, all worth would instantly be placed in motherhood, and that is one area where I fail most often. Thus, I would be like the boxer beating the air (1 Corinthians 9:26), the one flailing his arms in an effort to be what he could never be: perfect. 

My life would mean little more than showing up to fail myself, rather than allowing God to show His mercy and grace to me through my mothering, through realizing I can’t and won’t do everything correctly. And in that recognition, I find that His sovereignty and goodness aren’t muted by my mistakes. 

What a relief for us all, to know that God’s beauty and forbearance will never hinge on our performance. What a promise of safety and rest to guide us from this life into the next!

Let’s Pray:

Lord, thank you for your grace, mercy, and everlasting patience. Thank you for being all the goodness and perfection we can’t be. Even in your flawless character, you show us what it means to be full of humility and love, and I praise you for that. God, I ask that when we fail, we refuse to listen to pride’s lies that we can put everything back together on our own, and may we refuse to listen to shame that says it’s all over.

Thank you for having control of the pen that writes our stories, and thank you that those stories are all wrapped up in your redemptive pursuit of your children, no matter their mistakes.

We praise your good, almighty name, Amen.

Share your reflections on today’s devotional in the Your Daily Prayer discussion on the Crosswalk Forum.

Photo Credit: Unsplash/Christian Erfurt 

Peyton Garland is an author, editor, and boy mama who lives in the beautiful foothills of East Tennessee. Subscribe to her blog Uncured+Okay for more encouragement.

Related Resource: When Life Unravels: Biblical Strategies for Hard Seasons

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