The words “EPIC FAIL” are twit-flick-hashtag-nonsense for something that looks rubbish… a funny picture of a disastrous cake, or an amusing accident… Hardly ‘epic’ but certainly ‘fail.’

The online joy that is Wikepedia, tells me that “Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success.”

I am not always sure this is how God sees things however. To many of us, failure is failure and that is an end of it. But after a short look at gigantic swathes of the Bible we find out what God does with so-called “lack of success.”

It is His speciality. He deals with failure all the time. Because He deals with us all the time!

You and I are flawed, but loved in full measure anyway. Many of the things we will try will fail. But it does not make US failures.

EXHIBT A = Me.

Often God uses what you would call ‘failure’ to train me.
So would that still deserve to be called failure? Probably not.
Sometimes He works out the situation to discipline me as His “dearly beloved” child.
Is that still a true failure then? Not in every way, no.
There are many, many instances of God turning unlikely and impossible circumstances around in my life bringing a totally different kind of ending.
Could that rightly be construed as a failure? Well not really, no.

God sees life differently. And I praise Him for that.

I look back at the album I recorded over a year and three months ago and find it hard not to see it, at least humanly speaking, as a total and utter failure.

It has not been finished. I have not heard any of it mastered.
It has not been heard by anyone because of the above.
For whatever reason, (too long and dull to go into) I no longer have a record company. Nor am I likely to have one again… yawn… yawn.
Life circumstances are such that even if it were finished I would have no time or inclination to do anything with it. Yadda Yadda Yadda. My dreams for it are so broken and so dashed I have just had to lay them down, unfulfilled, uncompleted and undone – just as they are.

Perhaps you also know the pain of dreaming some really big dream and it just falling by the wayside in a wet heap? It is not easy to deal with… but once you’ve got up again, you realise some important things about yourself and this God you call FRIEND.

Let me tell you what I am learning: My criteria for success is often totally dependent on what the world has sketched “success” to look like.
I believe that the human recognition we crave is almost always visible, tangible, recognised by others, lauded and applauded.

Heavenly recognition on the other hand, may be totally unseen and unheard – at least this side of eternity.

God doesn’t judge success on these outward outcomes but on inner attitudes – the choices our heart makes in service to Him. His criteria for whether something ‘goes well,’ may not be yours or mine.
So none of my songs may reach Platinum disc status but if they touch and soften the heart of one prisoner, that may be all they were intended for.

God is not all that interested in Brit awards, the amount of people who “heart” your picture on Instagram or who ‘Like’ you on Face-ache. That is little more than transitory, time wasting trash. My words not His.

Perhaps all He is looking for is faithfulness, purity, and obedience.

If we measure what He has asked us to do in those terms perhaps our biggest failures can be seen differently. Did you obey when God asked you to step out?
Good.
Did you look and feel like an idiot when it went wrong?
Not so good… but still not EPIC FAIL. ( see above again)

He may ask you to step out further next time. Therefore the mission was successful – even though your dreams for it may never materialise you were found FAITHFUL. Faith is never failure in God’s eyes.