4 Unbelievable Ways God Uses Our Failure For Our Good

Hey sis! Did you know that there are unbelievable ways God uses our failure for our good?

Have you ever failed at something you worked really hard at? And have you been struggling to see how God can use this failure for your good? If we’re being honest, we’ve all failed at some point in our lives, and whether it’s a big failure, or a small one, finding the silver lining might be difficult.

However, the bible tells us in Romans 8 verse 28 that “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who^[a] have been called according to his purpose.”, and in this post, I’m going to talk about 5 unbelievable ways God uses our failure for our good.

4 Unbelievable Ways God Uses Our Failure For Our Good

 

God Can Use Our Failure To Transform Us:

1 Peter 5:10 tells us that “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast”.

I’ve spoken about my difficult journey getting to Poland after teaching for five years in Japan. My visa was denied twice and there were multiple obstacles along the way. I felt defeated and wondered how I would ever make it through.

I struggled to see how God would ever be able to come through and I was blinded by my own desire to be in complete control of my life to see anything but my failures.

But God had another intention for my struggles.

Many of us as human beings are fairly independent of God. We believe that we can do it all on our own, especially if we’ve been doing great so far, and we rarely rely on our Heavenly Father and His strength to bring us through.

However, this bible verse reminds us that God can use our failures to get our attention. In our weakest moments, he can restore us and use us to do amazing things for the Kingdom despite our weaknesses.

When God wants to transform us, when He wants to humble us, He will use our limitations and inability to move the mountains in front of us, to open our eyes so that we can see ourselves for what we truly are and see God for who He truly is. We are sinful, weak people who, without the grace and mercy of our Lord and Saviour, are unable to live for him in our present, sinful bodies.

In the bible, Peter, one of God’s disciples, denied God three times, even though he swore he wouldn’t. This was a massive failure on his part because this showed just how broken and dependent on God’s power to sustain him, Peter really was.

But thankfully, Peter was restored completely and able to continue his walk with his master despite his denials.

 

God Can Use Our Failure To Open New Doors Of Service:

When I was working as an ALT in Okinawa, I was the only foreigner on an island of about 4000 people. Not only was I out of place, but I was also unable to make friends or become as involved in the community as I had hoped.

As an ALT whose job was to represent her country proudly and engage in cross-cultural exchanges, I was failing miserably.

After struggling for months to figure out what I could do to be more involved in the community, I overheard a conversation between two villagers. who were thinking about taking cooking classes, and an idea came to mind. Why not host a few classes of my own and involve residents of the community who wanted to learn more about my culture?

At first, I was nervous about the thought of hosting such an event, but eventually, I went to the Board of Education, shared my idea, and six weeks of hosting cooking and dance classes soon began. God was able to use another of my failures for my good.

We all know the story of King David. David was a man who was loved by God and yet he was also a man who was seen as a failure in all senses of the word. David listed after Uriah’s wife. He had Uriah killed in battle.

Before this, King David slept with and impregnated Uriah’s wife and this would only be the beginning of his downward spiral.

The scripture also tells us about David’s transformational journey and how God was able to not only restore David but use him to bring so many others into the fold. God can use you and your failures too. 

 

 

God Can Use Our Failures To Transform The Lives Of Others:

Do you believe that God can use your failings to transform the lives of the people around you?

Sometimes, even the lives of people you’ve never even get before? I believe He can. We are living in an age where the “imperfect motivational speaker” is prevalent.

Every day you hear about speakers who’ve made severe mistakes in their lives and how these mistakes impacted said people’s lives. One of the main aims of the speaker is to use their platform to help transform the lives of their followers, many, with great success.

God can indeed use the things and experiences we have failed at to change the lives of others by using them to teach other people lessons or prevent them from making the same mistakes we have.

I’m not shy about sharing my testimony with the people l meet because I believe that my story is important to my Christian faith. My story is one of loss, failure, and redemption, and God has been able to use the failures I’ve experienced to humble me along the way.

I’ve made several major mistakes in my life and am thankful that God has given me multiple platforms to share my story because I want others to see that God can raise you after a fall and He can use your dark past, no matter how twisted it might be, not only for your good but for the good of others.

I’ve also gotten emails and comments from numerous people who have gained hope through the sharing of my testimony. Bless God.

Growing up, I believed that I was unstoppable in my Christian walk and that I’d never make “those” mistakes but through my failed experiences, God has caused me to reevaluate my spiritual journey and help me to understand that God can indeed use broken things.

 

 

God Uses Our Failures To Reveal Our Sin And Change Our Futures:

God can use our brokenness and our failed experiences to reveal our sin and change the course of our lives forever. In our brokenness, it is safe to say that we need Jesus. But in our sinful state, it is often impossible for us to admit this.

I know this was definitely the case for me. For months I lived in sin. I basically turned my back on God to the point where I didn’t even realize that my sins were actually sins.

It wasn’t until I had my biggest mess up that God was really able to reveal my life for what it actually was. The bible tells us in Psalm 34 verse 18 that “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

This verse was never more real for me than at that moment when I hit rock bottom.

When we are in a state of brokenness when we feel as though we’ve failed God completely, we are much more open and willing to listen to what God has to say. God is then able to use these moments to reveal the defects in our character, that would otherwise be difficult (or almost impossible) for us to see.

And because we are now willing to see our weaknesses, we can ask God to help us have true victory.

If God hadn’t gotten my attention when I was living in sin, He surely got my attention after I failed to retain the lease on my apartment. That was the true turning point for me and I’ll be forever grateful that God got my attention before I made even bigger and more permanent bad decisions.

God allows the failures in our lives to show us where we have sin in our life or where we need to grow so that he can shape us into the person God wants us to become.

 

A Lesson From The Life Of Peter:

When most people think about “messy people” or people who have made mistakes in the bible, they tend to think of the biblical giants- David, Moses, and Paul. But not many people think about Peter. After all, his story wasn’t spread out over multiple books in the bible as some of the other biblical giants’ stories were.

Peter, for me, is an amazing example that failure is not final and that God can indeed use our failure for our good. 

I started following Jesus when I was about thirteen years old and like Peter, I had a fairly big personality. I was always willing to do whatever my pastor or church wanted when it came to making the name of Jesus known or saving as many lives as possible. And I wanted to “do the impossible” just as Peter wanted to do when he asked Jesus if he could get out of the boat and walk on the water just as Jesus was doing (Matthew 14 vs 28-29).

Not only did I share the same kind of big personality as Peter had, but I also shared one of his biggest weaknesses- I thought that I was too holy and too pure to ever fail Jesus.

In Matthew 26 vs 34-35 when Jesus predicts that Peter would deny Him, Peter scoffs in disbelief because that was impossible. He couldn’t possibly do something like that because he loved Jesus way too much. Yet the very night that Jesus was arrested, Peter went on to deny Him three separate times.

I thought the same thing too. 

Back in 2014, I went through a horrible divorce. The love of my life left and everything around me was falling apart. In my mind, the day I said “I do”, was a forever thing.

That moment would be one of the biggest achievements of my young adult life.

It would be one of the biggest things I could ever do as a woman of God and I would go on to be a super wife, super spouse, super mom, and super impactful.

But life did not turn out the way I expected it to and I ended up failing at marriage and become a divorcee at the tender age of 23. 

After Peter denied Jesus, I can’t imagine the guilt, the pain, and the grief he must have been feeling. After all, Jesus had called him to be a disciple; one of the inner circle, one of the closest people to Him, and yet, despite all that happened, He, Peter, betrayed Him. That must have been a hard pill to swallow and an even harder burden to carry around with him.

But did that failure disqualify Peter from being a part of God’s plan? No, it didn’t. And the same thing goes for you.

Failure is not the end of your story. It might be a redirection. It might even be the end of a chapter in your life. But it is by no means the end. God uses our failures for our good.

It took two years of solitude, one massive deliverance, and many people entering and leaving my life, teaching me about their own pasts, their own failures, and their own regrets, and tons of prayer and encouragement for me to realize that failure isn’t the end of my road.

Failure is not the end of the journey. It is only the end if you decide to stop going at that moment. It is only the end if you don’t do anything after you failed.

In the same way that God cared about Peter enough for him to be one of the very first people that Jesus appeared to after His resurrection (Luke 24 vs 34, 1 Corinthians 15 vs 5), God still cares about you!

In the same way, God restored Peter and sent him onwards to preach a message that would save thousands of people  (Acts 2 vs 14-36), God will restore you too. Again, God uses our failures for our good.

In the beginning, I did feel like a massive failure. I held my own pity party, and felt like my chances of doing anything good with my life were over. But that wasn’t true.

My own failures were simply God redirecting me and giving me chances to start over again. And God is doing the very same thing for you.

You might be feeling like you have this hit rock bottom and then some. You might even be feeling like your life is over and that there is no tomorrow. But I am here to tell you this.

Just as failure was not final for Peter, just as failure was not final for me, failure is not final for you. God can use your failures for your good.

 

 

What Do You Think?

• How can God use our brokenness?

• Does God redeem our mistakes?

 

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• 25 Christians Songs For Encouragement And Strength During Hard Times

 

All my love,