FFTF Episode 5 - Understand Your Failures: Why We Repeat Wrong Choices
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[00:00:00] Welcome to From Failure to Fulfillment, where failure isn't the end. It's an acronym for Growth, friend, analyze, investigate, learn, understand, regroup, and Execute. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Blackwood, also known as Coach Drew, and together we'll discover how God transforms our failures into steps toward Christ-like fulfillment.
One of our foster sons often found himself in conflict with the other children, and I would ask him, what did you learn? And he would say A lesson. And then when I follow up with, what was the lesson, he would shrug and cry and say, I don't know. That reminds me of how we often handle our own failures. In the last episode, we talked about learning from our failures.
Today we're gonna take a step deeper [00:01:00] understanding them. Proverbs four, verse seven says, the beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom, though it cost you all you have. Get understanding. There's a relationship between learning and understanding, but understanding digs deeper. It asks the why behind our patterns and behaviors.
If you've ever felt stuck repeating the same mistakes again and again, this episode is especially for you, one of the most shame filled failures I've ever experienced happened in a work context. Years ago, I had signed a non-compete clause in a contract that worked well at first, but as the years passed, I felt the agreement was no longer fair.
Instead of trusting God to provide and creating a healthy exit strategy, I simply ignored the contract. I began offering services on my own without the organization's knowledge or permission. [00:02:00] In essence, I lied over and over again when the truth came out, and it always does. It damaged the relationship.
It tarnished my reputation and left me with a huge mess that took me months to clean up. It was one of the most painful seasons of my life. If the lesson was simply don't lie, or Honesty is the best policy, I already knew that the real issue was understanding why I had chosen dishonesty in the first place.
As I reflected during that period of healing, I realized lying wasn't new to me. I remembered middle school when I felt weighed down by my parents' divorce, doubts about my salvation and anxiety about failing grades among so many other things. I was too embarrassed to face math class, so I skipped [00:03:00] school.
I'd even call my mom from the office pretending to go home. Only to phone her again from across the street saying I had decided to stay. I was anxious, ashamed, and desperate and lying. It felt like survival. At the heart of those choices was fear. Fear of consequences, fear of being powerless. Fear that no one would help me.
I believed I was on my own. It had to save myself. As an adult, that same fear resurfaced. My dishonesty wasn't just about contracts, it was about trying to rescue myself rather than trusting God. One of my favorite stories in the Bible tells us about Joseph. He was one of the sons of the patriarch Jacob, who later became Israel, and he was sold into slavery by his [00:04:00] brothers.
So he experienced betrayal and he was. A slave for years, and he was shown God's favor and he became the right hand man to Potiphar, who was one of the generals, if you will, in Pharaoh's kingdom. And Potiphar's wife was attracted to Joseph and tried to seduce him and get him to sleep with her. And unlike Joseph in Genesis chapter 39, who resisted Potiphar's wife saying.
How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? I didn't connect my choices to my relationship with God. I was living as if he wasn't with me. God, our Emmanuel wasn't with me. But you see, this pattern isn't unique to me. King Saul, though chosen by God repeatedly disobeyed because of fear. [00:05:00] One Samuel chapter 13, when he was supposed to go to war and the people, his army were scattering, he panicked and offered a sacrifice.
Instead of waiting for Samuel, he didn't want to go into this fight alone like me. Saul didn't trust God would come through, so he tried to save himself. Understanding our failures means seeing both sides. Comprehension and compassion comprehension is about recognizing the patterns and triggers behind our actions.
While compassion is remembering that even though our choices may be wrong, they do not define our identity or our worth. Isaiah one 18 says, come now. Let us reason together, says the Lord. Your sins are like scarlet. They shall be as white as [00:06:00] snow. Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
God doesn't just want us to memorize lessons. He wants us to reason with him to understand our own hearts and to let him transform us. I needed to understand not only what I had done, but why. In that place of honesty and truth, I could finally receive God's wisdom, his help and his forgiveness. I was then able to extend compassion to myself.
Failure didn't disqualify me. It redirected me back to God's grace. Yes, my choices were wrong, but they didn't define who I was or who God was shaping me to be. So let me ask you. Have you ever repeated the same mistake, the same choice, wondering why you can't break the pattern? How has God [00:07:00] used failure in your life to deepen your understanding of him and yourself?
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Share them with me when you can. In relational failures, God isn't just asking us to do better. He's inviting us to be better. He's inviting us to understand the roots of our choices, to receive his forgiveness, and to grow in compassion for ourselves and for others.
Philippians one verse six says, he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. That means your failures are not final. God is still forming you. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you so much. Failure isn't final with you. Regardless of what we've said or done, or even how we've thought and felt, you have good thoughts about [00:08:00] us.
You have good plans for us, and you are faithful to bring those plans to fruition to completion. We are grateful for your grace and your forgiveness, and your love and your correction for who you love. You correct. You correct us. You don't leave us as we are. So we thank you. We thank you for this moment, this season, this time where we can bring our failures to you and we can see them as a friend encouraging us to analyze, investigate, learn to understand, regroup, and execute so that we can be all that you've called us to be.
We thank you that we're not doing this on our own. We have each other, but most importantly, we have you. Thank you Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thanks for spending this time with me. Until next time, keep moving from failure to fulfillment [00:09:00] in Christ. Thanks for listening to From Failure to Fulfillment.
If this episode encouraged you, share it with a friend and don't forget to like, follow, or subscribe so you won't miss the next one. Until then, remember, with God, failure is never final.
