The Only One Who Thinks You're a Failure is You!

“Now thanks [be] unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.” (2Co 2:14 AV)

If we feel like a failure, it’s not God’s fault!  According to Paul, where ever he has been given opportunity to share the knowledge of God, God has made him triumph.  That doesn’t mean churches with enumerable people had been planted.  What it does mean is the preaching and teaching which the LORD commanded Paul to do accomplished what God intended for it to accomplish.  Our problem is our eyesight.  We have our sight on the externals and cannot see the spiritual warfare of which we are entangled.  We cannot see the victories won.  All we see is numbers and choices.  What we don’t see is the slow growth which is often under the surface and hard to distinguish.  What we cannot do is give up and think that our ministry means little to nothing.

I will always remember my father as a math teacher.  That was what he did while I was in middle school.  He taught in a Catholic High School.  He also volunteered as a Boy Scout, and then a Girl Scout leader.  He organized our family to play music at church.  He served his family and community faithfully.  Much of it went under appreciated.  I am sure there were times he thought he was a failure.  Especially when those in whom he invested seemed to not take the same interests in life that he did.  But that is not the case.  I like to hunt.  Much of what I learned to be successful in the outdoors, I learned from my father.  How to identify trees.  How game moves.  Topography of the land.  Wilderness survival.  And my favorite – knot tying.  I still use the bowline hitch and two half-hitches.  First aid comes in handy.  Even all the music lessons came back.  I put down the acoustic guitar for thirty years.  Yet, when some friends wanted to play bluegrass gospel, all the cords came immediately back to me.

You see, it is God who makes us to triumph because it is God’s word which is going forth.  As long as we are willing to be used of the LORD, then we will triumph.  No matter what we can see.  No matter what we may think.  Being a vessel in the hand of God assures He will cause us to always triumph in Christ!