Living BEYOND Our Borders

I don’t know about you, but in my life, there has always been a finality to the word “failure.” For me, I’ve had to overcome this concept that to fail means that “it’s over. I lost.” 

Failure can define a career, a competition, a mistake, an accident, or any number of other disappointments that happen to you or around you, but it cannot define YOU – unless you let it.

Michelle and I have failed in many things. We have made poor choices, we’ve had others make poor choices that effected our lives and our plans, and we’ve had things happen for which we’ve had zero control – things that have left us reeling, lost, and feeling like failures.

Yet, here we are – still traveling the road that God put us on and still moving forward – even if sometimes it feels like we’re stumbling or falling forward. That is because failure IS NOT final. Failure is part of the journey, but it doesn’t have to be part of the destination.

The goal is that we learn from our failures so that we have a better understanding of the road that we are traveling – making us better able to see the potholes, pitfalls, and obstacles along the way.

God has designed it that way. Failure is part of the process. So is pain. When we learn to embrace the process, to not fear failure or run from the pain, God is able to give us insight and understanding that will take us to our destination. He is also able to use our failures to strengthen our emotional and spiritual muscles and to give us “thick skin” so that we’re able to handle even more difficulties and disappointments!

It sounds strange to say it, but failure, disappointment, and pain don’t have to be our enemies – they can be our friends. You know, the strange, nerdy ones that teach us things without us knowing they are teaching us things.

Embrace failure. Embrace disappointment. Embrace pain. Your future will depend on how well you welcome those things that were once enemies.

Ultimately, learning to embrace those things that, in the past, have brought us pain and anxiety, depends on our willingness to step outside our comfort zone – to live beyond our borders so to speak.

Obviously, having lived 16 years in the Middle East, we have a slightly different perspective on what it means to live beyond our borders. It’s difficult, uncomfortable, humbling, and painful. It is also educational, life-altering, worldview changing, and beautiful. It’s not either/or – it’s both/and.

Learning to embrace disappointment and failure can be the same. Difficult AND educational, uncomfortable AND life-altering, humbling AND worldview changing, painful AND beautiful.

The defining question is “where are you with God?” Reaching your destination is not dependent on how much pain you were able to avoid, it’s dependent on where God was in the midst of it. Are you letting Him lead still, or did your pain push Him away? You cannot effectively embrace the failures and disappointments if you are not already embracing the Father and abiding, dwelling, living in His presence.

It’s in the habitation of His glory and presence that we find peace, joy, and victory while we’re seemingly in the grip of defeat.