Not a failure

Sometimes I like to beat myself up. The devil and I work together on a mantra that goes something like this, "You're a failure. You have secrets. People think you're so good; what if they really knew? You're such a failure at life. You fail at home. You fail at work. You fail at school. You are a failure."  It continues on and on in my head for hours and days on end. 

Do you do it too? Maybe it takes a spark-one day of not working out, a ridiculously large pile of laundry, missing Bible study-and the whispers start. They get louder and louder in your head until you almost quit because, really, it doesn't matter, you're gonna fail anyway. 

I've got news for you. And for me. We aren't failures. That is a lie that the devil uses to defeat me. And you. It works. A lot of time, I wallow and I quit because I'm wasting my time believing that I'm a failure. But, you know what? I'm redeemed. I'm in the arms of Jesus who said, "Megan, with me, all things are possible. So, go, do what I've told you to do and fight the vultures away because they're coming to peck away at your hard work." 

God whispers to us that we can do it. He has set forth a plan. Sometimes it takes an action, even a tiny tiny one to set us back in motion. He's waiting on us to do something to prove we believe. Tonight, it was as simple as taking a quiz that I had decided I was going to put off. I didn't care; it was going to be a bad grade anyway, who cares if it was a day late. I laid in the bed and started hearing the yelling. "You're a failure. You always fail when you attempt school. Why did you think this time would be different. You're wasting your time and money. You fail." And then, I started singing a worship song. Truly, I did it to get the yelling of failure out of my head. They were too much to bear. What I heard through the silence of the night, almost audibly if you'll believe me, was, "just-attempt it. You know a lot of this stuff. You have an hour and Me. Just try it."  

Y'all. I made an 88. I know that sounds silly. I know that may not be much and the high schooler in me is screaming that that is far from a 100. But, it's far from failure. It takes work to not fail. We are in the arms of Jesus, but He's giving us stuff to do. We can't just sit and wallow; we have to work and do. And we will grow. And succeed. And certainly not fail.