February 22, 2014

I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. - Philippians 4:13

"I wish I had learned more about failure when I was young - how to handle it and appreciate it.  ...  Failure happens regularly ... it's part of everyone's experience.  ...  FAILURE ISN'T A PART OF YOUR IDENTITY; IT'S SIMPLY A PART OF YOUR JOURNEY." - Tony Dungy

God's timing with this lesson today is amazing.  I believe I needed to have this today.

I find a tremendous amount of confidence in that BOLD statement.  Confidence I don't think I have ever felt before.  I wish so very much that someone could have explained this to me when I was young.  I have carried all my failures with me for so long and they have become part of my identity, something there were never supposed to be.  Why do I not think I can lead or do something great?  It's because I can see my past failures, they are right there in my hand.  Who would want me to lead?  Don't they see these failures? 

When we are driving and we hit a pothole, we don't stop and take a picture of the pothole and put it in our car, we keep on driving.  What we do is we remember where that pothole is and the next time we are on that road we are careful to drive around it.  Failures are supposed to be left behind.  They are steps in our journey.  Who we are is whomever God has made us to be.  He must be our identity.