Failure(?)

God told me to make a poster that offered prayer to people and stand in the town square holding the sign. God told John to make a poster too. So we made the poster and held it for people to see.

I’m not going to lie, it was a little awkward and uncomfortable, but neither me, nor John, nor Joshua could deny what the Lord had told us. 

After about 15 minutes of holding the sign we received some looks, some smiles, and some heads turning in surprise and shock, but no one took us up on the offer. We stayed out for another 30 minutes standing on the corner and walking the streets. In that time we got some more looks, waves, and honks. At the end of our time the total prayer count was one. We prayed for one woman in the 45 minutes of holding the sign.

Failure(?)

I don’t know how you define success or failure, but my flesh wants to call this a failure. I stood out there for 45 minutes and prayed for one person. Was that even worth my time?

“Failure” is part of life whether I like it or not. Most of my life I have not liked it in the least bit. I could see my failures in just about anything I did even if it wasn’t all that big of a deal. I lost not a little sleep and joy and possibly some sanity because of it.

Let me ask you a question: “What is the best way to ensure you won’t fail?”

My answer to that question was simple, don’t even try. And so that’s what I would do as often as I could. Nothing. I hate the idea of failing and I lived in that fear of it, it crippled me. It’s a pretty sad, depressing, and miserable way to live!

E!sh Enough of that! That’s not pleasant to think about at all. Satan loves to keep us in a place of discouragement so let’s not stay there any longer, okay? Good. Moving on.

I think that when our flesh sees failure, God actually sees faith. Putting ourselves in a place where we could fail takes real faith because faith requires action.

One of the teachers in CGA told us that when we do things that have a risk of failure we break molds in our lives. I like to think of these molds as brick walls was that I have put up to create “security” in my life.

“Doing that could be painful so I’m going to put up a wall so I don’t even think about going there.”

I thought I was protecting myself for failure and pain, but what I was really doing was cultivating fear in my life not security. Those walls where fear and a false sense of security. What John, Joshua, and I did with that sign was more than just offer prayer for people, we broke down some walls and molds of fear. Fear lost that hold on me, I can hold that sign anywhere, anytime. With that wall down think of the places I could now go?

Without your walls, where could YOU go?