Failure = Freedom

All of my life growing up I was told, "You are so smart...you can be [insert respected profession]." Every adult in my life since the time I entered first grade has been telling me about all of the things that I could do for people. Many of them have sited a further ability to process logically and connect large concepts as the main catalyst for this. 

To be quite honest, I never wanted to be any of the things that people asked me to be. I don't want to be a doctor, although I'm sure I could do a good job of it. I don't want to be a lawyer or anything else that carries prestige of that nature. Many people have looked at where I am and consider what I am and what I do successful and many have considered it failure to use my potential. 

A band that I used to listen to coined it rather simply:

"There's nothing like complete exhaustion 

The atrophy of complete defeat 
The feeling of the world upon my shoulders 
And realizing I am incomplete 
Well there's a lot of freedom in failure 
Of recklessness of weightless abandonment " - Brave Saint Saturn

I was pining my entire life to live up to standards that everyone else set for me. I wanted to be the smartest, the most well-payed, the most famous, the most "successful" (whatever that means). The thing that I had to learn was that the whole time I was yearning to make things happen on my own, my soul was reaching out for something larger than myself and in a sense holding me back. Not holding me back from what I should be, but holding me back from being distracted by a feint illusion of happiness and a future that ultimately would serve to be more and more self gratifying. The other thing is that it seemed the closer that I got to achieving success the further it walked away. I can name several times in my life where it seemed a fruit was dangled directly in front of me to be wildly successful and then it disappears. The enemy works like that.  

Christ calls each and every one of us to serve others and deny ourselves. When we die daily as He calls us to, we are crucifying our own desires and as a result we pin all of our successes and failures on Him. We have all heard a lot of this in sermons and it's a tired speech, but many people take it there and simply stop - robbing you of the real statement. 

When you nail your success and failure to Christ, you are freed from the burden of failure because He will turn all things to good for THOSE THAT LOVE HIM. I struggled in life a lot and have had many things come up that I simply could not understand and when I look back it all boils down to a simple concept of not relying on Him. He will honor your obedience and your sacrifices with blessings.

Tricks Satan uses to rob you of your spiritual purpose:

1) Distracting you with goals that are self serving (Money, Power, Success, Achievement, Fame, etc.)

2) Preys on your emotions of inadequacy

3) Gives thoughts of doubt and emotions of fear (The bible says almost 365 times not to fear)

4) Has you looking for physical signs of His presence (Testing God)

                  -For the record, once I became more obedient I started seeing much more of His presence

5) Engages you in logical reasoning against God's will (Versus leaning not on your own understanding)

Many people think that Satan is there to try to harm you and punish you. I feel that those notions could not be farther from the truth. The Art of War by Sun Tzu speaks to strategy as deception. To be victorious you should make your enemy think you are weak when you are strong, unorganized when you are organized, unprepared while you stand ready, and several other deceptions along those lines. If you think that Satan is unintelligent in the Art of War you are fooling yourself. Satan will make you think that he is very strong, when comparatively to God he is incredibly weak. He will make you think that he doesn't have a plan for you when he is consistently searching for whom he can devour. He will make you think that the bad things that are happening in your life are all because of him, when all the while he is tempting you with sinful desires to lead you astray.

Don't be fooled. Money, Knowledge, Power, Beauty, Wisdom, and all other things will pass away but His word. The only thing that will ever matter in life is the effect you have on other people and when you sacrifice yourself you are free to fail because the overwhelming power of Christ takes over and turns things to good FOR you. It's the ultimate safety net.