Janna Faith: Hello, I’m Jana Faith.

And I’m Anna Faith, and welcome to episode 41 of Faith Talks.

This episode is continuing in our series, Fearless Faith, as we overcome faith’s enemy, attacking lies and strongholds of fear that are holding us back in our walk of faith.

So today we’re talking about the topic of past failure, the fear of past failure.

And we have exciting things to share with you today.

And we decided to start it out that we would start by defining our terms.

So let’s ask the question, what is a failure?

And as me and Jana were talking about this, actually failure and what we know of past failure and how it affects our lives is kind of a nebulous thing and has a lot to do with our expectations.

So maybe it’s your own expectations of something.

Maybe you are in school and you have an expectation for a certain grade that you want.

So if you don’t reach that grade, then you failed.

Or maybe you are playing some sport and obviously sports is pretty cut and dry.

Usually you fail if you lose a game.

So maybe that’s a failure in your mind.

Maybe there’s this one big, maybe you’re at like a championship and you lost the game and you failed that year and you guys, your team didn’t win.

Or maybe it’s a test, a really big test that you failed and it sticks out in your mind and it affects how you live your life.

Or it could be someone else’s expectations for you and these can actually be really, really big.

Maybe your parents have set expectations for you and you just have to meet them or else you completely failed.

And that can be something that defines you.

Or maybe it’s some people around you.

Maybe it’s a teacher.

Maybe it is you’re in your church setting.

Maybe there’s authorities in your church that have set expectations for you.

And you feel like if you don’t meet them, then you have failed. and I guess the last one of the expectations would be the expectations that God has laid out in his word that if we don’t meet them we fail them and oftentimes this is really resulting in sin if we’re not meeting the expectations that the Lord has laid out for us in his word then we are not obeying him and we are in sin so these are just a couple thoughts that we have as far as failure and understanding what it looks like in our life.

And I think it’s interesting, we were talking about

Anna Faith: this before, you know, what might be a failure for somebody, someone else could look at that and totally think it’s not a failure.

I know for me, even sometimes I would have like a recital or something and I would get off the stage and say like, oh, that was such a failure, you know, because I had a certain expectation, but someone else listening, oh, it was beautiful, you know, because they didn’t have the same expectations.

So I think even past failures in our life, others might not even view it as that.

It just totally depends on the scenario.

And often we don’t want to take a plunge and try something when we failed at it in the past.

And I know for me, sometimes it is helpful to just forget those past failures and move on.

But on the flip side, I think it also can be helpful to look at those past failures before maybe trying them again in the future.

And that’s what we’re going to talk a little bit about today.

Just looking at your past failures, saying, okay, like, you know, why did I fail?

What was going on there?

And just seeing if you can work through them some before trying them again.

So let’s just look at that question.

Why did you fail?

So everyone, if you’re listening and you think of a past failure, think about that right now.

And we’re going to look at some reasons of maybe why that failed.

The first reason is kind of what we talked about a little bit already, expectations, but this would be unrealistic expectations.

Maybe you wanted perfection instead of a realistic goal or progress.

Here’s an example.

Imagine a little kid, he wants to learn how to ride his bike.

Okay, so you see him out there, he tries it one time, he falls over and he says, I failed.

I can never ride my bike.

Well, we chuckle at that, but it was because he had an unrealistic expectation.

He expected as soon as I get on that bike, I’m going to be able to boom, you know, be riding with my older brother.

But his expectation was really unrealistic because we all know it takes more than one time to learn to ride your bike.

And that can easily be us thinking of relationships.

Maybe you’re trying to mend a relationship.

You know, you’re at camp and you hear a message on forgiveness and being kind to your siblings.

So you say, okay, I’m going to go home and I’m going to be kind to my sister.

So you, you know, maybe make her bed for her or something.

And she reacts and is like, why are you touching my stuff?

And you’re like, okay, that failed.

Forget that.

I’m not going to keep doing that?

Well, it’s really an unrealistic expectation to think you can mend a relationship in one little thing.

So in reality, something like that is going to take multiple times.

Just like riding a bike, it’s going to take multiple times of doing it and seeing progress, making it a little further than before.

And especially with relationships, that can take a lot of time to mend it.

But it doesn’t mean you were on the wrong track.

You were on the right track you just had an unrealistic expectation that it would happen quicker than you wanted it to

Janna Faith: happen I think in just thinking of those unrealistic expectations I think a lot of times too we want to just be at like the end result of something that we’re working towards so even thinking of like the kid trying to ride a bike or I was even just thinking of and I do some nanny care but with the little one-year-old that I’m working with right now she’s learning how to walk and so she stands up and she’ll kind of you know wobble a little bit take maybe try to take a step but she kind of falls over and if she was like a full-grown adult in her mind about learning to walk I think she might just give up and say I failed so many times why would I even try again like this is impossible but like her little brain can’t comprehend even what she’s doing so she’s just like trying again falling over like you know how many times does a little baby who’s trying to learn how to walk fall over in a day like I don’t know maybe 30 like a lot of times they they don’t they don’t um take the progress that maybe that you know in their mind if they could think about it that they might to they might want to be the place that they would want to be at that was just another example that I was thinking of as you were talking, Jenna.

All right.

The second reason why we might fail is maybe because we are doing too many things.

And I think especially in our culture, there’s a lot of things that you can do with your life.

And there’s a lot of skills that you can develop and giftings and so many different things.

And a lot of things are really good and you should be developing and growing in so many ways in your life.

But if you are not seeking the Lord for what he wants you to do and you start to look around at other people and compare yourself to them and see all the things that maybe they’re doing, you can start to feel like a failure.

And example, maybe you see someone playing violin.

So you want to go and try to learn how to play violin.

Maybe you see someone playing a sport.

Maybe they’re learning volleyball and they’re doing all these spikes and overhand serves.

And so you want to get as good as they do.

So you sign up to be on the team.

Maybe you see someone who’s going on a diet and they’re getting super fit.

So you want to do that too.

You want to be the best version of you that you can be.

Maybe you see someone gardening, so you want to start to garden, so you can have all the healthy food to feed your family.

And there’s just so many things.

The list literally can go on and on and on.

And most of these things are not bad, but are they really what God wants, what God has for you?

And what’s your motivation when you’re actually doing them?

Because if they’re all centered around you being the best version of you, which is something that our culture just really, really emphasizes, you’re going to end up not being that best version of you because as humans, we are weakness.

And even thinking in the Bible of the Martha and Mary story, where Martha was encumbered about with so many things, preparing for Jesus, you know, hospitality.

This is a great thing.

This is something that we really need.

If you’re going to have somebody over, you want your house to be clean.

You want the food to be ready when they come.

So these are things that are actually really important.

But Martha was missing what the one needful thing was in that moment.

And that was sitting at Jesus’ feet.

So this is a huge thing, I think, especially for girls and ladies and moms.

And just we get so stuck in trying to be something and trying to do all these things and show that we are capable of all these things.

And sometimes we get focused on ourselves in it and we miss the one needful thing and we end up feeling like a failure.

Anna Faith: And I just think of one practical example this week as I’m getting close to labor.

I was just not feeling well at all one day.

And my husband was like, well, you should just stay home and rest.

And in my mind, if I didn’t go teach my lessons, I was a failure.

And really, he’s like, you know, you taking care of your body and your baby is your one needful thing over even your work.

And just his reminder of, okay, you just need to focus on the people that God’s given you, you know, yourself and your baby right now, and not view all your tasks and responsibilities as God’s will, because sometimes you just can’t.

So I think just learning what God’s given you and looking at, okay, like what’s your roles?

What are your priorities?

I think if your relationship with God is number one.

Number two would be your relationship with your family.

If you’re still in your family, then it’s your siblings, your parents.

If you’re married, then it’s obviously your husband.

And if you have kids, then your kids.

And just looking at, okay, what’s God given me?

And what are the extra things that I’m putting on myself?

To be looking at that.

Another one would be just to have a wrong focus.

So we’re looking at these reasons of why did I fail?

Well, maybe it was because you had the wrong focus.

I can think of several times when I was growing up, I wished I had a better personality.

And I would say, oh, if I just had a better personality, I could go talk to people I don’t know.

And, you know, I maybe tried.

I tried a few times and I failed.

And I felt like I was just lame, you know.

And I think it’s when you can have that wrong focus of, okay, I’m focusing on myself right now.

I want to make myself likable.

Instead of really focusing on, okay, I need to think about the people I’m reaching out to.

I need to think about the Lord.

And so it’s really easy for our focus in whatever this scenario might be to be on ourselves instead of being on the Lord.

I’m sure you’ve heard my dad preach the 0100 message.

And just about Peter, when he was walking on the water, when he had his eyes on Jesus, he was fine.

And he was walking on that water, taking steps of faith.

But when he got his eyes on his circumstances, when he got his eyes on the storm and the waves crashing, and even just himself, that’s when he started to sink.

And so often we can try to do these things in our own strength and not even really ask the Lord for enablement.

And this is really a surefound way to fail.

Maybe you say, you know, I’ve tried reading my Bible, or I’ve tried praying, or I’ve tried to forgive my parents.

And you could list a whole bunch of things.

But maybe you’ve been trying to do those things in your own strength.

You know, gritting it out, trying to do these things instead of depending on the Lord.

And really, I know for me, it can be a huge difference, even just in the morning, saying, okay, Lord, I want to meet with you.

And choosing to open your Bible and meet with Him. versus like, okay, I’ve got to check off the box.

Let me open it up and see what’s, you know.

So it can just be a focus change.

Maybe you had a failure, not because it was even a bad thing, but just because you had the wrong focus when you were trying to accomplish that.

So those are just some different things of maybe reasons why you failed.

Maybe some of those applied.

Maybe some of them didn’t.

But what are some things we’re going to go on now?

What are some things our mind tells us to do when we’re facing something that we’ve failed in the past?

So you’re looking at your past failures and what do you humanly want to do about those past failures?

Well, I don’t know if you’re like me, but I think one of the big things is if I’ve failed at something in the past or even if I haven’t but I think I have, I just want to avoid it.

I think of a simple illustration of water skiing. last summer no was it two summers ago I think it was last summer um I tried no it wouldn’t have been last summer because I was married then it was the summer before I tried water skiing for the first time and I tried several times and it it ended up with just me under the water being dragged and it was quite the experience um and when I look back at that I kind of would view that as a failure.

I didn’t try it enough for the record, but I would want to just avoid that.

Okay, next time people are going water skiing, oh, I’ll just watch.

And that’s one of the big things.

When we have a failure in the past, we just want to avoid it.

I don’t want to do it again.

Maybe you had a failure with a person.

You felt like you really disappointed a person.

I’ve had that many times in my life, and I just want to avoid the person.

I don’t want to talk to them.

I don’t want to even really go into talking about the problem.

I just hope, you know, if we just kind of leave that on the shelf, it’ll go away or maybe it’ll get better, but I’m not going to seek any restitution of any sort.

So that’s a very common one.

When we’re facing those failures in our mind, we can just avoid doing

Janna Faith: the task again.

I think another response that we can have is to just accept low self-esteem and just get discouraged and you just let that failure actually define who you are and and just be depressed about it well I’m not good enough for this and I wish I had that person’s skill set in this specific area and and then you end up blaming God for making you the way that he did and that you’re not like this other person and that you just yeah that it’s God’s fault it’s not your fault and you just kind of crawl into a hole and just feel depressed and discouraged about it and you don’t do anything to get up and you just live in that fear of that past failure.

I had one girl tell

Anna Faith: me once um like if I had done better in college academically socially spiritually I think I would be married right now and she was just talking about you know different failures of the past feeling like those are now defining her future and really it’s really easy for us all to let discouragement blind us from really God’s view of ourselves and instead just let discouragement like Anna Faith was saying just kind of put us in that little hole of like oh this is who I am I’m just a big failure.

I don’t know if you’ve heard the Patch the Pirate song.

Nobody loves me.

Everybody hates me.

Guess I’ll go eat worms.

And that’s what I think of.

I used to actually when I was younger, when I was discouraged, I would go sing that song.

So but that’s the kind of the mentality that seems childish, but it’s easy for all of us adults to do too.

Just letting our failure put us into discouragement.

Janna Faith: Another thing that we can do, and I guess this would be like in our discouragement as well, but that would be to blame someone else.

Maybe my past failure is somebody else’s fault.

Here’s an example.

My friend and I broke apart because she is so unreasonable and she doesn’t let me have my space in a relationship.

And I don’t want to seek restoration because it’s all her fault.

A lot of that really, in essence, is just pride in our lives.

The Bible talks about only by pride comes contention.

But we can just get stuck in thinking, like, my perspective on this is, like, the right thing and everybody else is wrong.

And I failed, but it’s definitely that other person’s fault because we were in it together.

Another example would be trying to read your Bible every morning.

Maybe your mom and your kids are always messing it up and coming and taking away that time from you.

So yeah, maybe just a mom was like, well, I’m just going to give up reading my Bible.

And maybe when my kids, you know, go to college, leave the house, then I can start over in that one.

But this failure of meeting with God every day is definitely on the kids, not on me.

Anna Faith: And I think that’s easier to do than we realize even.

Just like, oh, I can’t do that because of this other person.

Instead of realizing, you know, really with those kind of things, the buck does stop with us.

There’s this last one.

And we were talking about this.

This happens a lot.

You, you know, you’ve might tried to give somebody advice.

And the other person says, oh, that wouldn’t work for me.

Or, oh, that’s not quite me.

And you want to just say, well, have you ever tried it?

You know?

And a lot of times we can even call something a failure like, oh, I’m such a failure at cooking.

When it’s like, okay, how often have you actually sat down and like followed a recipe?

You know, I know for myself, I say, oh, I’m a failure at sewing.

But how often do I actually sit down and work on sewing?

I don’t.

Okay, so that’s just something.

Be careful when you’re like, oh, I’m a failure at this. have you really tried it and maybe you didn’t try it the correct way you know maybe you just threw stuff in a bowl and was surprised when it didn’t turn out like a cake you know that’s a dumb example but it it can be it can happen to us and here’s an example so in college I had another student who I would study with and they were super good at memory and I asked them you know like how do you memorize these verses word for word so well and they explained their whole method, you know, like five times this, ten times this, three times backwards and like all this stuff.

Well, I never tried it because it seemed like too much work.

You know, I could read the verse a couple times and get most of the words.

But I never was, I never got as good grades of them in memory because I wasn’t willing to do the process.

So that’s just another thing to think about with failure.

Have you really done the process that is needed to do that task?

Janna Faith: Just something to think about.

So let’s move on to God’s word.

What does God’s word tell us to do when fear comes?

Because the reality is we all have past failure in our lives.

And so what are we going to do when we let that past failure become a fear in our hearts?

Anna Faith: Well, I think of the first thing I think of is pray.

And so many times in Psalms, David cries out, sharing his fear with the Lord in prayer.

And I had this pulled up and here it is.

Psalm 3 is one where he just cries out to the Lord.

He says, Lord, how are they increased that trouble me?

Many are they that rise up against me.

Many there be which say of my soul, there is no hope for him in God.

But thou, Lord, are a shield for me, my glory and the lifter up of mine head.

And he talks about he cries unto the Lord and the Lord sustained him.

Verse 6, he says, I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves round about me.

And he goes on.

But so many different Psalms I was reading just in preparation for this, that David just cries out to the Lord when he’s in that place of fear.

I mean, you can imagine if you had ten thousands of people after you, you would have major fear.

And he just cries out and prays.

And it’s not like he’s praying an eloquent prayer necessarily, but it’s a lot of like, Lord, I’m scared, help me.

And I think that’s a huge thing to do when fear comes is to just remember to look up and pray.

I think of Psalm 56 where he says, What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.

In God, I will praise his word.

In God, I have put my trust.

I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. and then a couple verses later he says when I cry unto thee then shall mine enemies turn back

Janna Faith: this I know for God is for me another thing to realize that is if there is something that God has lead has led you to do if it’s his will that means that he will empower you he’s going to give you the strength to do it thinking of Philippians 4 13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me realizing that it’s not us that can do it anyways you know I think in so many ways all we are as humans is or constantly reminded of is just so much weakness and I think the Lord allows that in our lives because he wants us to completely depend a hundred percent on him and his strength and that’s when really we get to to shine the light of Jesus out of our channel out of our beings to people around us and to be that channel to those around us.

Another thing to realize is that God is standing ready to offer his strength and he wants to uphold us as we seek to follow him.

For the verse in Isaiah 41, fear thou not for I am with thee.

Be not dismayed for I am thy God.

I will strengthen thee.

Yea, I will help thee.

Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness realizing that God is right there with you in your weakness in your failure and you don’t need to be afraid you just need to turn to him and say God I am placing my whole everything on you for whatever it is or whatever um whatever maybe past um thing is in your head about like maybe a relationship and you’re just remembering a certain conversation realizing that God is there with you.

He’s going to strengthen you.

He’s going to help you.

He’s going to hold you with his, with his hand.

And you can trust him in every, every situation that he places you in.

And every

Anna Faith: time that you feel that failure, he’s right there with you.

I think one thing that’s important too, to realize is when you feel that fear coming, to realize that that fear is not from the Lord. 2 Timothy 1.7 says, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

That’s actually my life verse.

Because I have been very fearful over the years and still am over different things.

And I think that’s been helpful for me to even realize when I have that, you know, heart gripping fear about something.

It’s not from the Lord. and um when you feel that fear surging up within you knowing that it’s not from the Lord just pray and submit yourselves to God I think of the verse you submit yourself to God resist the devil and he will flee from you and that really is true if you’re submitted to the Lord and you’re resisting the devil then that fear has to flee and that sometimes happens when you take that step of faith you know, thinking of Peter when he was walking on the water.

I’m sure there was some like, oh, scaredness of even just walking on there, but he was taking steps of faith and he had his eyes on the Lord.

I think another huge thing is to not let your past define your future because really God can take anything in your past and work it together for good.

I think of Romans 8 28, And we know that all things work together for good to them that are called according to his purpose.

And one thought here is it may be in the past you’ve been wronged or been viewed differently than who you really were.

And even though this isn’t a failure, you could almost view it like that.

I think of the story of Joseph.

It would have been easy for Joseph to think his life was a failure, especially at the beginning.

And it wasn’t even that he did anything wrong, but that his brothers were calling him a failure.

And then it seemed like his life had so many turns, twists and turns that were for the worse, especially the first couple as he was sold as a slave.

And then he was unjustly accused.

And I remember just studying out Joseph a little more and really thinking about how he kept living innocent, even though he was accused by other people.

And I wrote a little poem about it, and I’ll just read this here.

But it’s just entitled Living Innocent.

And maybe you’ll find this applicable in your own life if you feel that you’ve been wronged and are living defined by that or just different things like that.

So this is about Joseph.

Joseph was just before God and man, but others saw differently.

You’re proud, said his clan.

Continuing blameless and purity, he ran.

But then accusations.

Was this part of God’s plan?

Although his accusers he could not negate, he refused to live guilty, though his sentence was great.

Wronged by so many, he could have had hate, but instead trusted God to order his fate.

For Joseph kept living who he was deep inside.

He didn’t let others his status decide.

Insecurity, shame, fear, he denied and kept following the voice of the one by his side.

You’re innocent.

Don’t worry.

You did what was right.

Don’t heed the voices.

Lower your arm.

Let me fight.

What lies deep in darkness will soon come to light.

Keep heeding my voice.

Your story.

All right.

And if that applies in your life, in the area of you might view your life as a failure, but really it wasn’t your fault.

It was others doing you wrong.

Just know that as you keep trusting the Lord, he can work those situations together for good.

Other Bible characters I think of would be David.

He really did have a failure of sin with Bathsheba.

But after he repented, God greatly used him and that failure didn’t define his life.

He was able to be greatly used of God later after he repented.

Janna Faith: Another one that I just thought of is Peter. and thinking of Peter I mean this kind of happened back and forth a lot of times I’m sure Peter felt like he felt a lot of times but probably his biggest failure would be when um when he denied Christ those three times um right when Christ was about to go to the cross and can you just oh I mean I’ve thought of this so many times just imagine how Peter must have felt after that and just just how oh how nasty how much yeah like the most the probably the biggest failure that you know you could imagine denying your lord and um he he did repent of this and when Jesus came back after um when he resurrected um Peter Peter was used of God in such a huge way and we were talking about this before the podcast but just thinking of Peter didn’t just um I don’t know just let the failure be there and just kind of wallow in it and everything he actually like attacked it basically you know he went from fear and from probably big time discouragement and you know just all of the nastiness of his failure and his um what he had done and he went from fear to boldness into reclaiming christ and um literally turned the failure on its head and so peter is such a great encouragement to us even just thinking of getting victory over our fear of past failures because his failure was pretty big i mean i don’t think you could really argue any failure bigger than his denying the Lord like he did and so um if Peter if Peter was able to see the turnaround and the victory that he did in his life we definitely all can be greatly encouraged by by his example and in his life too so as we conclude here’s just a couple truths for you to take away from what we’ve talked about today.

Thinking of Peter’s testimony and I’m sure there’s many others we could look at in scripture.

God wants to take you from fear to faith in regards to any failure, any past failure that you have had in your life.

And realize failure is a focus on yourself.

If you are constantly thinking of how you have failed in some The focus is all on you, you, you, and how bad you are.

And if you keep your eyes on you, you’re going to keep finding shortcomings in your life.

And you’re going to keep seeing, wow, I fall short in this way and in so many ways.

And even thinking of the verse that all of us fall short of the glory of God.

And that is what we are going to experience as humans.

But if you keep your eyes on Christ, he is going to help you out of looking down on you and seeing who he is and seeing that he has actually placed you here to be a channel of him to others.

And you can focus and know your God and allow past failures to actually become stepping stones for others to see the victory that Jesus has done in your life and the victory that they can have in their life as well.

And lastly, choose to step out by faith and do what God has led you to do.

If maybe there’s something that you have failed before, but God is leading you to take another step to try again, ask him for the grace and trust him in that and step out by faith.

And it will be so amazing for you to realize that when God does something through you, it is so much better than you, than you doing it the best that you could do it.

And you’re going to experience the grace of God in your life with, which is just such a huge, huge blessing for you. don’t let fear define you or cripple who God has made you to be he has made you just right and all of us have different personalities we have different strengths and we have different weaknesses and if you trust God and who he has made you to be and realize that in the body of Christ he has made you especially where who you are and placed you where you are so that you can be that channel of him and be be something that other people can’t be in the church that you’re in or the place that he has placed you in in um maybe it’s in a sunday school class or maybe in your youth group or maybe your mom and your family and god has made you just right and you can trust him and you can bring your weaknesses before his feet and allow and depend on him allow him to use you and God’s going to do great things through your life.

So remember, faith doesn’t just

Guest Speaker: talk, faith walks.

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Thee Generation Podcast.

If you have an issue you need help with, we have a resource that can help you.

The Battle Plan for Victory is an online resource designed to help young people deal with personal sin issues through the Word of God, and ultimately, to find victory in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Guest Speaker: To view the battle plan, please visit thegeneration.org slash victory.