One thing that really irritates me about my humanness is that there are some lessons that I have to learn over and over and over again; I don't like that. And here is one that I may have learned more than any other...
I don't; and I don't believe anyone else does either; like to fail, be defeated, mess up, fall, or lose. But something I realized I do has been detrimental-I define myself; who I am; by my failures and defeats, and that is simply not true. Someone once told me "If you aren't making mistakes; you aren't doing anything." That's true; failure, mistakes, and defeats are part of life-they will come. The test is how we let them affectt us; what we do with them. We can let them define us; and that's when we are truly defeated; or we can learn from those mistakes and move forward. I am NOT my mistakes. I am so much more than that-and the same holds true for you. You may say, "But man I have really fallen flat on my face",or "I royally screwed up." Maybe so, accept it, deal with it, and move on-that failure IS NOT YOU!! Take note of it, decide what you could have done differently, learn a lesson-but THEN after you have gleaned wisdom from it place it in the past and leave it there. When we are constantly evaluating ourselves by our past then we stay stuck in the past, we are slaves to it. It becomes bondage. We are held captive in these past events and are unable to move forward. God doesn't see our flaws, mistakes, or sins once he has cleansed us. If he lets them go, we should not be so high and mighty as to think that we need to hold on to them. Do we think we are wiser than He? He forgets it, and so should we. Like forgiveness, we may mentally always remember these events, but there is a big difference between that memory being there and that memory haunting you. Your mistakes, failures, and defeats are just that-events in your life where you made a mistake, failed, or were defeated. They are not you, so take it, look at it, learn from it and scrape off of it any wisdom or knowledge you can get, and then discard it into the back of your memory pile. Then not as a defeated person but as a wiser and stronger person-move forward and be who the Father made you to be!!