Your Life Is Not A Failure

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Do you struggle to let go of the past?

Maybe you look at your life right now and wonder how you got to where you are. You thought things would be so different.

Maybe your parents wanted you to be more successful than you are.

Perhaps you made some very wrong choices that completely altered your future, and there is no way to go back and fix what you’ve done.

Do you live in a constant vortex of failure, regret, and trauma?

If this is you, I pray that this article will set you a new path and begin a new life for you of understanding the depth of God’s love that changes and delivers us from failure, regret, and trauma.

In my article You Don’t Know How Much God Love You, we learned that God’s love is multi-dimensional, it is eternal, and it completes and matures us.

We also discovered that His love doesn’t protect us from bad things, but that it allows circumstances that He uses to strengthen us and build endurance in our lives.

In Psalm 139:16 takes this a step further – a whole big, giant step further.

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

Do you realize what this means?

Do you understand the power of this verse?

Your Life Is Not A Failure

I’ll never forget the first time I heard my dad make this powerful statement:

Failure is an event, not an identity.

7 words, but with the level of nuclear power in my life.

You see, I lived under a cloud of deep, deep regret. In my 20’s, I wandered away from the Lord. Oh, I kept God close enough to be able to call myself a Christian.

I didn’t deny Christ with my words, but I most certainly did with my actions.

As the late Ravi Zacharias so aptly said, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.”

This was so true for me. I went further in my sin than I ever intended, stayed longer than I wanted to – despite my longing to be able to repent, I could find no heart or tears of repentance.

My sin cost me so much.

I came back to the Lord, and while I had the joy of forgiveness and restoration, a cloud of deep regret followed me for years.

I could only see where I could be if only….

If only I had not walked away.

If only I had not wasted those years.

If only I had spent that time fully dedicated to the Lord.

And then I heard those words, “Failure is an event, not an identity.”

It happened. It passed.

Years have gone by, and I am here now, walking with Jesus, passionate about His presence, dedicated to His Word….and my identity is in Christ, not in my past!

And then I discovered the truth of Psalm 139:16.

We see this truth echoed in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”

Before you were even born, God saw you. “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.”

You were planned before He even formed you in your mother’s womb. You are not an accident. Perhaps your parents didn’t plan for you, but God did – long before conception.

But David goes a step further.

The days of our lives were formed and written in a book before we even took our first breath. “And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.”

Your life was already known by God before you were ever conceived.

Nothing in your life has taken Him by surprise. Not your failure. Not your trauma. No decision you made has taken God by surprise, because He already wrote down every day of your life before you drew your first breath.

Dear sister, your life is not a failure.

What you do from today on is your choice.

Now you know the truth.

And now you have a choice to make.

Will you continue to live under a cloud of failure, regret, and victimization, or will you allow the truth of God’s Word to lead you to a place of victory and overcoming?

God redeems all things and uses them for His glory.

In the moment I heard those words, “Failure is an event, not an identity”, I knew I had to stop living out of the identity of my past and begin living out of a new identity.

My identity in Christ.

This new identity enabled me to walk out from under the cloud of regret that followed me and opened the door for God to use my past for His glory.

Doors opened for me to counsel and disciple women.

Doors opened for me to teach God’s Word, pray with women, and watch as their lives are transformed for eternity.

God has used my life story, and He is now glorified through the testimony that has been built through it.

And He wants to do the same for you.

I will leave you with one more quote from my dad that has also had an impact on my life:

Your past and present circumstances do not have to determine your future or your identity.

You are a new creation in Jesus Christ; therefore, you have a new future and identity. The question is: will you walk in it?