What if we fail with grace?

Failure. I may be alone in this feeling but here lately I feel like I fail way more than I succeed. So, I decided to take a step back and really look at that. To really examine this season on failure in my life and dig into what’s really going on here.

The first thing I look at is how am I failing? Am I failing and just staying in that pit of failure or am I failing with grace? Failing with Grace??? Trish, what are you saying? Do you even hear your self? Failure is not something most people relate in any way shape or form with grace BUT – what if we did?

What if instead of, “Oh look at her. She is failing as a wife, or mother, or daughter,” or whatever we can fail at and thinking, “Maybe if she had not been so lazy, so moody, so whatever she was to cause the failure this could have gotten worked out. If she had just tried harder then this wouldn’t be her story.”

What if instead of throwing shame and judgement at someone in their season of failure we looked at them and thought, “Wow. God must be doing something big in her heart or life! I should encourage her through this difficult season.” Maybe if we would see these rough seasons as an opportunity to grow in grace instead of a scarlet letter across the person’s chest our BIG God would show up and do BIG works – only in that person’s life and heart but in ours as well.

In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul is talking about his weaknesses. He is talking about his own failures. It goes on to say that he pleaded with the Lord not once, not twice, but three times to remove this shortcoming from him. The Lord’s reply to him is what brings me back to this idea of failing with grace. The Lord said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul goes on to say how he will go on boasting in his weakness so that the power of Christ will rest upon him.

This is where I get the idea about failing with grace and that grace is where I should land in seasons like the one I find myself in. I should not try to hide my failure but instead be honest about it because in my weakness He is strong.

I think so many of us come up short in this day and age. We find ourselves failing at trusting, at loving others, at life in general. Shoot, don’t think I haven’t forgotten to pick my kid up from practice recently. My mind has been a cloud of fog, and I have dropped so many balls. It’s not just you guys. We are all in this together. We find ourselves losing left and right, and just can not grasp why this is happening to us.

I think that maybe we are missing out on the grace that comes with learning from our hard seasons. The grace that comes with trusting someone else with our truths and watching God use people in our lives that we never would have expected. I think that if we choose to see the good in not only our shortcomings – but those of others as well – instead of using them as some form of perch to put our selves on, that God will show up in our lives and the life of someone else big time.

So maybe you’re in a rough seasons with me – maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re out living your best life, but you know someone who is struggling. Maybe this is when we choose to FAIL WITH GRACE. Maybe this is where we allow God to use us to encourage someone else to fail with grace. Whatever the case may be with you guys I truly believe that in the end grace, kindness, and love will dominate the story. So, lets choose our response to failure wisely. Fail. With. Grace.

But he said to me, “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. -2 Corinthians 12:9-10

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. – Romans 8:28