Failure, Shame, and Disgrace…Oh My!

 Have you ever felt like a failure or felt a sense of shame and disgrace?  I know I have.  If I were a betting gal I’d bet that you have too.  Satan LOVES to fill our hearts with shame, failure, and disgrace.  Why?  Because he wants to fill us with so much despair that we give up.  Give up on what?  On the calling and destiny that God has for us in our marriages, families, spheres of influence, ministry, health, etc. 

Recently I was wrestling with my own sense of failure and disgrace and the Lord took me too Isaiah 54.  Here’s what God says about His people who have suffered and felt destitute like the barren woman who can have no children.  Watch this in v. 2-3, “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.  For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.” 

Feel like a failure?  Ever felt like that destitute, barren woman?  I have, not only physically but spiritual and emotionally.  YET, God says to us stretch out your tent.  Aka, DON’T GIVE UP!  In fact, we are called to expand and be strengthened.  What calling has God placed on your life, what dream in your heart?  There’s comes a time when we need to take a risk and stretch out our tent.    

As we walk in humble obedience before the Lord, in His gracious timing He will restore us and take our disgrace.  Often times God allows us to experience failure, shame, and disgrace in order to grow us into the person He desires us to be.  He is preparing us for our destiny, stripping us of ourselves to fill us with more of His Son.  So, Beloved, you keep pressing on because God is working in you to build perseverance, faith, and ultimately the character of Jesus. 

I often wonder how much shame Moses, David, Hannah, Mary, Joseph, Paul, and Peter felt.  Yet, God used them in some pretty powerful ways!