My Little Devotional: "It's the Soft-Tap Life for Us"

Inspiration for Today’s Devotional: “The Big Mac Question”

While this episode served largely as another “comedy of errors”, with two parallel stories running that managed to confound one another, the end message was a lesson shared by the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Spike, Discord, and even Big Macintosh and Sugar Belle–life isn’t about always nailing things perfectly for other people, but supporting each other in our relationships and learning to make successes as a result of failures and hiccups rather than in spite of them.

As painful as it is for most of us, if not all of us, to accept, it is more than likely that we all learn more from our failures than our successes, and that having the freedom to suffer the pain of failure and all of its consequences, no matter how terrible, can potentially do more for us than having an “easy route”.

As an example, considering two families with a teenage child: one rich and wealthy and the other not-so-rich. Imagine that both families buy their child their first car. Now imagine that both teenagers relish their newfound freedom without giving the proper respect toward the gift and responsibility they’ve been given, run wild, don’t keep up maintenance on their vehicles, and end up trashing them. Both go back to their parents. The first family decides to buy their child another new car to replace the old one. The second says their child got their “freebie” and from now on they must scrimp and save to afford a beater of their own to get them from A to B.

It doesn’t take much to infer which of these two children will be more likely to care for their future cars and drive more responsibly with each one. While the latter teenager will likely be bitter and strapped for cash for a while, they’ll also be forced to learn self-reliance and greater appreciation for their vehicle. The former, on the other hand, likely learned that their parents will simply bail them out of such situations in the future.

One of the big shocks that many young people get when transitioning from high school to higher education is that things are no longer “easy”. Public educators are under legal obligations to reach every student regardless of skill level, so the burden is far more on them in those institutions. By comparison, in college, the pool is much more select and students are expected to put in more. “A” students who easily sleptwalked through high school without much effort can find it to be a rather sharp adjustment compared to students who had to work harder, as the latter are already familiar with failure forcing them to adopt more stringent study habits and greater self-discipline. Again, in that case, early failures led to developing greater responsibility and skills later.

What about relationships? In the dating scene, there’s no shortage of toxic, controlling, and/or immature individuals out there that we may have had the misfortune of pairing up with. In some cases, it might have involved being stuck with them for years. However, when a breakup eventually occurred, most of us who went through that experience matured and realized what we really wanted in life and out of a relationship, as well as learned that feelings of “puppy love”, common interests, or even simple cures for loneliness are not enough to guarantee a long and happy life with someone.

From personal experience, now that I’m out of school, one of the things I had to learn quickly in the job world was to not be afraid to fail. If you’re too scared to fail, you’ll never try to learn new skills. You’ll never take the initiative that leads to greater responsibilities. As was quoted in one of the “Kung Fu Panda” movies, “if you only do what you can do, you’ll never be anything more than what you are”.

Yet in spite of the fact that failure is such an essential first step to becoming great, if not exceptional, at something, it isn’t something that most of us gravitate toward and, often, is sharply discouraged. We prefer often to criticize, condemn, and mock people who fail even when a genuine effort is being made to learn. Many families and parents show no tolerance for failure whatsoever, resulting in many of their children either giving up on things entirely or going to the opposite extreme and becoming perfectionists. It leads many as adults to cover up their failures rather than attempting to learn from them, and go around with a mask of faux excellence and superiority to try and cover their own ineptitude out of fear.

The Bible, however, is more direct. It makes no secret that all of us, from greatest to least, are “failures” in a sense. That all of us have failed due to our sins, and that all of us are short of God’s glory and perfection that is demanded (Romans 3:23). Yet this isn’t meant to discourage us or to make us simply sink into a sense of depression and failure. The primary purpose it serves is to inform us of the need for Lord Jesus’ Sacrifice and His boundless Love for us, but I believe it accomplishes more than that. For one, it means that none of us should ever view anyone as better than another. Furthermore, it shows one of the most important aspects of God–namely that, when we trust in him and follow him, he turns failures into successes.

Abraham was 100 years old and, by all accounts and world views, simply waiting for the end of life when he finally had Isaac; his son that led to the nation of Israel (Hebrews 11:8-12). Joseph’s big mouth ended up getting him sold into slavery and later imprisoned falsely for years before he became one of the most powerful men in Egypt (Genesis 41:50-52). Moses had fled his lifestyle as a member of the royal family in Egypt and was quietly living out the last of his days as a shepherd when God manifested his true destiny to him, making him one of the most important figures in Judeo-Christian history (Exodus 2:11-3:14). The nation of Israel itself came from a multitude of slaves who spent an entire generation wandering around in a desert due to rebellion against the Lord (Joshua 5:6). Many of the Judges of Israel were raised up not from positions of success but at times in which Israel was under oppression or foreign control due to their turning against the Lord (Judges 3:12-15; 6:12-15; 10:6-11:11). In terms of the New Testament, Peter made one continuous slip up or failure after another during his time under Jesus–culminating in his ultimate denial of Him during His trial–which left him so broken he didn’t even watch the crucifixion (Luke 22:54-62). Yet he went on to become the leader of the early church and eventually went to death for his faith. Paul, perhaps the greatest Christian theologian of all time, started out being stricken blind by Jesus for his persecution of the early Church (Acts 9:1-5). While John was in exile on the isle of Patmos for his own faith, he ended up having the Revelation of the final book of the Bible (Revelation 1:9).

And, of course, the greatest conversion of failure into success was the cross itself. What was once an ugly, loathsome symbol of pain and death, having no more nobler purpose than one would expect from a guillotine or a hangman’s noose, is now the symbol of salvation, freedom from sin, the victory of God, and ultimately eternal life as a result of the precious blood of Jesus. What once was profane, base, and ugly is now sacred and glorious.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14).

As said by the Bible itself, with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). That is the business that God is involved in; taking what the world considers failures and refuse and making something glorious out of them. Those are the true miracles of God…making beauty from ashes; making life from death. It was shown in Lord Jesus’ ministry and it remains to this day to all who call upon Him and cling to Him.

My suggestion for today is to meditate on the true saving power of God–to take what is considered miserable failure and make something beautiful and glorious out of it. To realize that nothing is ever truly dead or destroyed until God says it is.

If you have something in your life that you believe has fully ended in failure, or that you are feeling totally hopeless about with no chance at renewal, I urge you to bring your fears and concerns to God, place your trust in him, and see what he can bring out of even your darkest failures.

“”For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Suggested Prayer: “Lord God, thank you that, for all who trust in you, the true ending place for all failures is not the grave but the cross which Our Lord Jesus took upon Himself almost 2,000 years ago. Through the agony and misery of the Passion, Our Lord emerged at the Resurrection new and perfect. By clinging to the Lord, may each day our old sinful self likewise be put to death as we grow closer and closer to the new life you promised. And may each failure we encounter mean the death of something evil within us and new life for something good. Gratefully in Jesus’ Name, Amen.”