You May Have Failed but You’re Not a Failure
(November 17, 2025)
Did you ever miss an opportunity that you knew would never happen again? I
remember my senior year in high school I was tending goal for our varsity soccer
team in a quarterfinal game, when the other team was pounding the ball near our
goal. The ball bounced furiously back and forth between the cleated feet of our
defensemen and their offense. My job was to dive into the middle of that fray and
gather the ball into my arms and save the goal from being scored. But I froze,
afraid of getting pummeled, and the goal was scored. We lost that game by one
goal.
I could identify with Bucky Dent, who a few years later, let a routine ground ball
pass through his legs in the 1986 World Series to let the go ahead run score, from
which the Red Sox never recovered. Maybe you’ve missed an opportunity you
know you should have capitalized on, but you didn’t.
Many folks shrug that kind of thing off and move on. But for me, who was raised
to believe that I was a screw up and a failure, every failed opportunity only drove
the point home that being a failure was in my DNA. It was my identity.
If you can identify with this, I know that me telling you that you are not a failure is
not going to help much. But what if I told you that God says you are loved and
accepted no matter what you DO, and that He says that you CAN, in His strength,
do all that He gives you to do? (1 John 3:1/Isaiah 41:9-10/Philippians 4:13)
What I just said is the truth, my friend. The tape playing in your head that you are
a failure is a lie! If you are a child of God, then you have the Holy Spirit in you. He
will help you to reject the lie and believe the truth! Don’t give up. The truth will
set you free (John 8:32).
Ask God to lead you to some verses that address the lie in your head. Meditate on
them and take them to heart. Talk to a mature believer or two and ask for their
prayers for you in this. Then watch the LORD lead you to freedom!