“…can my seeming “failure” be a stage for God to show up and show off? In failures? Really? No…really?! Maybe…if I’m open to letting God have His full way, then maybe…..”

When my brother asked the above question, my heart leapt in my chest because I suddenly understood my season better. I have had many days when what I have always known and done isn’t working anymore. The things I have always done with ease are coming across like I am a novice. The harder I try the greater the challenge and more pronounced the failure.

It took me back to my high school days when I dropped from the top of my class to very nearly the bottom. I remember days when I read and read and read for exams but still had an E grade in one subject or another. I sat up, I studied, I joined group discussions and only did worse. My math teacher was one of the hardest most demanding teachers but she consistently looked for grades to give me and still it was a fail.

I got so tired of reading and failing that I just stopped. Instead, I focused on the things God put into my heart to focus on and saw resounding success. It took everything in me to give up power over the failing ones but it also took all He had to wait for my voluntary alignment in these areas. At that moment I was totally lost about the areas that weren’t working as I expected even as I had learnt to let go. I even made a deal with Him, that I would go straight into university and not have to do the bridging programs and all.

It was the hardest season in my life because I had to stand on His promises even when everything around me said something else. Every exam we did seemed to cast in stone that I wasn’t going to do well and I was left to stand on a seeming foolish belief that I would do well. So I did the things I knew to do and kept the prayer for success and good grades alive in my heart.

It didn’t help that my struggles were somehow announced to the a part of the world and there were people who knew how I was struggling yet I was in a place of leadership. Yet what I didn’t know at the time was that those who knew joined on bended knee to pray for me. It roused people to stand with me without telling me. I always wondered where the peace that I had, came from but as I look back, it came from all those who lent their voices to my situation.

These are the things that get me thinking about failing forward.

Would I be okay to do my best and still ‘fail’ if I knew that it would honour God and bring someone else closer to Him?

Would I be fine to fail if I knew that it would order my path and help me reach my full ordination faster?

These are bit questions to ask myself and answer honestly. I have learnt that my life is so little about me and so much about the other people I will touch. It is about the lives that will change because I am fully yielded to the plans of God. It is about reaching the mark and prize that have been set forth for me.

Am I willing to fail forward to accomplish divine purpose?