When I graduated from high school I had great plans for my future. I was going to be a doctor, like my Dad, with a successful family practice, daily “stamping out disease,” as he described it. Little did I know what the future held.
My first semester was a rude awakening. I’d graduated at the top of my class in academy, but college was a whole different ball game. I struggled in my classes, getting decent, but not pre-med level grades. I felt like a failure!
I decided the school might be the problem, so I transferred from Southern Adventist University to Atlantic Union College, then to Andrews University. Same result – failure!
I took a year off and decided bioengineering was my calling, so I transferred to Walla Walla University. One quarter of calculus ended my engineering dreams. Failure!
While at Walla Walla I got engaged to a wonderful girl from back home who was attending Loma Linda University, so I transferred there, with teaching as my goal. Three weeks after arriving we broke up. Another failure!
Back home for a year, then back to Andrews. At Christmas break I met Ana and everything changed. With love, came direction and purpose. Two years after we married I graduated from the Kettering PA program, with a job all lined up and a baby on the way.
Since then I’ve been blessed with a wonderful marriage, great kids, a successful career, and an amazing life. Sure, there’ve been setbacks and failures, but I’m no longer defined in my mind by them. I have a God who loves me and who I know is directing my steps.
Why am I telling you all this? Because we all, at one time or another, fail at something. What we must realize is, failure doesn’t need to define us or determine our future. Just because you fail at something, doesn’t mean you are a failure. As Pastor Roger Hernandez says, “Failure is an event, not an identity.”
Even if you, like me, have failed over-and-over in the past, God is in the business of turning failure into victory. He is the God “who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” (Psalm 103:4, 5 NIV).
No matter how bad you’ve blown it before, remember this – you are not a failure. You’re a child of God. You have a bright future ahead. The Bible promises, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Just keep holding God’s hand and, no matter how you’ve failed before, He will lead you into a brighter tomorrow.