Six Temptations of Failure, Day 5 of 6
Are you still with me? So far we’ve covered the following temptations:
- Believing that You are the Failure
- Allowing a Failure to Spread its Branches
- Making Inappropriate or Unintentional Vows
- Blaming Others
Only two more to go. I pray that God is speaking to your heart as you read this series of blogs.
Temptation #5: Avoiding Others
In the midst of a failure, you may be quite tempted to avoid others because of feelings of humiliation.
First, know that the feelings of humiliation are probably totally inappropriate. Humility is a good thing; humiliation is a bad thing. Experiencing a failure may be humbling, but you should not feel humiliated by it. You tried something and it didn’t go as planned.
Repeat after me: “Everyone fails.” It’s a part of life. There’s no reason for you to feel humiliated. And everyone makes mistakes. If a mistake on your part lead to the failure, it wasn’t your first mistake and it undoubtedly won’t be your last. Learn to live with not being perfect. Only God is perfect and you’re not God.
So resist the temptation to avoid others – you need them to love you as you recover from the failure. You need people around you who will regularly remind you about the great talents and gifts God has given you, and about how special you are to God and to them. You need people to love you. Trust me, avoiding friends is debilitating and will prolong your recovery process.
And perhaps most importantly of all, the world needs to see how a confessing Christian deals with failures and setbacks in their lives. This might be the most important message that your life could ever deliver to the watching world around us. Hiding your failure and avoiding the world will never get that message across. It’s like burying your talent in the sand.
If you’ve avoided others lately, let me encourage to right now think of someone you will call later today or tomorrow. Or perhaps you can reach for the phone right now. Go for it!
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