The Leader’s 3 Best Friends: Failure, Forgiveness and Forgetfulness

1. Failure

“You are such a failure!” You may have heard these words aloud from someone across the room or they may be gently whispered to you by the enemy.

Failure is not a person but rather a choice we made or an experience we have been through. Either way we feel like we are at the bottom looking up. On occasion, God wants us at the bottom because our perspective is different from that position.

Confidence is usually at an all time low after failure and that’s when we need to turn to Romans 5 to see how failure is our friend.

We also brag when we are suffering. We know that suffering creates endurance, endurance creates character, and character creates confidence. Romans 5:3-4 GW

 

2. Forgiveness

If we needed to feel like forgiving people who hurt us we would probably never forgive anyone. Forgiveness isn’t about our feelings neither is it about forgetting what has happened to us. The popular phrase “Forgive and Forget” is not correct.

Forgiveness does not mean accepting continued abuse or even reconciling with the person who has offended you. Forgiveness doesn't mean that you deny the other person's responsibility for hurting you, and it doesn't minimize or justify the wrong. If we simply “forget” the offense we would remain vulnerable to it over and over again, a cycle of abuse.

We are reminded to, Forgive anyone who does you wrong, just as Christ has forgiven you. Colossians 3:13 CEV

Forgiveness gives us the freedom to move forward without hindrance from the past.

 

3. Forgetfulness

Although forgiveness is not forgetting, it is wise, on occasion, to practice selective amnesia with some aspects of our past. God does this with us. I will treat them with kindness, even though they are wicked. I will forget their sins. Hebrews 8:12 CEV.

To put it in perspective God may say something like this, “I definitely remember forgetting their failure.” If we are always focusing on our past we may have a hard time moving into the future.

If God can choose to forget our past then we must make a mindful choice to forget our past as well. I focus on this one thing:Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on. Philippians 3:13b-14a NLT

Today…Press On!


Photo Credit: shutterstock.com Image ID:260127077 © Vlad Teodor