Failure and Success: The School of Failure

As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.—Psalm 103:13-14

For some of us last year was one in which we did not acquit ourselves very nobly as Christians, considering the infinite power available to us through the indwelling Spirit. But through the goodness of God we may go to school to our failures. The man of illuminated mind will learn from his mistakes, yes even from his sins. If his heart is trusting and penitent, he can be a better man next year for last year's fault-but let him not return again to folly. Repentance should be radical and thorough, and the best repentance for a wrong act, as Fenelon said, is not to do it again....

Brother Lawrence expressed the highest moral wisdom when he testified that if he stumbled and fell he turned at once to God and said, "O Lord, this is what You may expect of me if You leave me to myself." He then accepted forgiveness, thanked God and gave himself no further concern about the matter. The Warfare of the Spirit, pp. 102-104

"Oh Lord, some of us have graduate degrees from this school! Help us to learn well from our failures, to accept Christ's forgiveness, and to move on. Give victory for today, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen."