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“It’s part of life.”
But it really is, IF we’re growing. If we numb and distract ourselves away from God’s growth opportunities, we can really get off track.
When you have made a mistake, own it, apologize for it, learn from it, and tether yourself to Christ BECAUSE of it.
We can’t do this on our own. We’re not supposed to. And if you think you can, sin is probably getting in there.
When you make a mistake it is a grace.
“It is His kindness that leads us to repentance” Romans 2:4. How cool is it that he redirects us on THIS side of eternity.
Accept a failure as a gift.
A gift to grow.
A gift to say “never again”.
A gift to completely change everything.
A gift to make an important tweak.
A gift to make a life-altering habit change. (Yes, habits alter our lives… more on that another time!)
Bravo to you for growing. Bravo to you for listening to God’s leadership.
“His ROD and His staff, comfort me.”
His rod is his direction and redirection — we get to be comforted by the fact that He will not let us go off the path into danger. If we allow his rod which is firm and instructive to guide us.
Listen in for encouragement and the knowledge that your failure is a GOOD opportunity for God’s work in you.
Blessings,
Belah
PS – If you’re ready to see how God can transform your marriage possibly through a DYM program, you can sign up for a FREE Clarity Call with me or a member of my team here: delightyourmarriage.com/cc
If you were looking for marriage counseling, you would first have a consultation to see if you’d be the right fit. That’s what a Clarity Call is.
But the real value you get is seeing what’s under the surface in your relationship and discerning what God wants in your marriage and life. Would love to have you on! delightyourmarriage.com/cc
transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight your marriage. Hi, there, welcome. Thank you for joining me. It’s Bella. And this is the podcast where we talk about marriage, we talk about sex, but we also talk about a lot of elements of life that feed into both of those areas, because marriage and sex is so transformative, or it can be if we let it. And so today’s topic is about failure, about embarrassment about messing up, and what can you do in response to that, and maybe your mess ups and mistakes are in your marriage, and maybe they’re in other areas of your life, and that’s impacting your marriage. And yeah, it all kind of feeds into each other, doesn’t it? Now, before we move forward, I want to invite you to book a clarity call with me or a person of my team. If you are feeling like you know what I really, I want my marriage to transform, I want it to change, I’ve been listening to you belah for, you know, months or years, and it’s just time, it’s time to get this thing turned around. So if that’s you, you can go ahead to delight your marriage.com/cc for clarity call. And you’ll be able to fill out a form and we’ll review it and see, you know, yes, this is a person that needs this call. And I’m really sit with you and listen to your story and in and help dig under what’s what’s going on and how we can support you and transformation because God is doing miracles in marriages. Every day, we get to see that. And I just invite you to have some faith that God could do it for you, too. So delight your marriage.com/cc. Now let’s go ahead and dive in.
2:21
So this is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. Because if you are listening, that means you’re looking for answers, you’re looking for growth, which I just commend you for. It’s awesome that you’re taking the step to move out of wherever you were and into something better. And I’m just so grateful you’re here. And I think God is proud of you that you are reaching for growth. And that’s what this is about. We’re not here to stay the same. God has not done with any of us yet. We’re all working out our salvation, day by day. and myself included. You know, as burrowers, as learners, obviously, we’re going to be processing and witnessing areas that we can grow. And sometimes it feels like we’re drinking out of a firehose, we don’t know how to process it. And instead of moving in a good direction, we just feel paralyzed. And like, oh, my gosh, I’m so terrible, because I made this mistake. And yeah, you know, maybe it was a terrible mistake. Maybe it was maybe, maybe you had an affair. You know, maybe you looked at pornography, maybe you you know, had some, some awful other things that that happened. And yeah, you know, or maybe you have high standards for yourself because of where you’ve grown so far. And you, you did another thing that, that maybe to someone else wasn’t that big of a deal, but maybe to you, it’s like, I really missed the mark. And I know, you know, I know, this is a growth opportunity. That’s, that’s the thing. I want you to see it as is like, like, I was talking to someone yesterday, if, you know, they were saying, you know, my kids will never forget this moment. And we’ve been there. First of all, we’ve been there thinking like, you know, gosh, I wish I wish they could just forget it. I wish this would have never happened but the truth of the matter is, yeah, they’ll never forget it. But what if that was the moment that they witnessed everything in your life change because of that moment? Because it was a wake up call for them. So if you’re saying you know this failure this mistake actually changed everything. It allowed me to get shaken up enough that it all changed. It all transformed. Because the thing is, I think God does give us little warnings in our life all the time, it will pay attention to them. He is teaching us he is a good leader. He leads us, He guides us and yeah, it says they rod in my staff will comfort me, you know, the, the ride is kind of like a you know, if a sheep is kind of going off to the side, the rod is kind of like a, a long stick that kind of pushes them back into the inside. And yeah, I mean, I used to have sheep. So in order to move a sheep, it’s got to be kind of firm and strong, the sheep don’t just, you know, a little feather, like nudge is not going to move them. So, it is, you know, sometimes we do need a rather firm, strong guiding rod to keep us, you know, back on the narrow path, but how wonderful is it that God does that. So we don’t get off, you know, into the mountain on our own with the wolves, and they’ll kill us and eat us. Right. I think about, you know, ministers that, you know, fell into affairs and, and it wasn’t just a one time thing, it was weeks and months. And, you know, it impacts so many. But what if the first time they got quote, caught? What if or what if it was the first you know, step in that direction, they got, quote, caught, and God was able to, to correct that, before it became something huge and ugly and awful. So use your failure as a growth like thank God that now you see it as a failure, thank God that now you see it as embarrassment or even shame like I
7:13
I’m not one to enjoy those feelings either. But they’re not enjoyable feelings, right? A rod, pushing your neck over into the other sheep isn’t an enjoyable experience. But, but God is a good shepherd. And he’s not going to let you go astray. Like he doesn’t want that. He wants you to be in the straight and narrow path that he has marked out for you. And so using these failures, using these opportunities for growth, allowing yourself to be sensitive to them, and not numbing away, not distracting yourself away, not filling yourself with video games or Netflix or social media or whatever. So that you can actually process what’s going on. So that you can actually look at what happened and in process now not to say I mean, sometimes we do need distractions for a little while until we, you know, can have a little bit of time, separate from it to then turn around and say, Okay, what happened here? Let’s look at it carefully. What can I grow from so, you know, there’s not condemnation on those things, but don’t stay there. Don’t stay in the the distraction, distracting yourself away. Use this as a catalyst that no more never again. You know, if there is still breath in your lungs, there is hope. There is hope as a wonderful mentor of mine says like, if there is still breath in your lungs, there is hope. You know, maybe you feel like you messed up with your kids. Maybe you feel like you messed up in your marriage. Maybe you feel like you messed up in your profession or your ministry. Those are hard things because they hit us at the core. If I messed up here, gosh, who am I like, I must be this horrific person and the thing about Jesus is he came for the horrific people. I’m not saying that what you did was right. I’m not saying that you should you know, think it was not that big of a deal. sin is sin and it’s bad. And the payment of sin is death. So your your your sin is bad don’t that that’s not what the message here is. The message here is that our sin should draw us to Jesus to say I can’t do this by myself. You know gosh, I got out of out of the you know line out of the pouch. because I was trying to do it by myself, I was trying to do this on my own strength. And I get that man, you know, especially when you’re pursuing wisdom and growth and all these things, and then you’re, you kind of lose focus and you say, You know what, I can do this on my own rather than getting quiet. Getting before Jesus saying, God, direct me, lead me, helped me. I mean, it really has to be daily. But not just daily, even moment to moment we, we are growing, we are learning. The Bible is full of wisdom and insight in the Holy Spirit speaks through it. We are we are growing, we need to have space in our life and organization in our life to see what God wants us to be about. And not be so distracted ping from one activity to another from one text message to another from one post to another, where we don’t get to see what really matters most and then we’re just doing it on on our own strength, we’re doing it out of Reaction rather than out of purposeful, processing, prayerful presence, in the moment, asking God for help. And I’m guilty of this too. I’m growing in this too. I wanted to release this podcast because this is something I need. There’s this some, there’s this quote that says, If you can’t do teach, that’s often how I feel when I’m teaching, because this is the human experience. We’re gonna, we’re gonna have the embarrassing, we’re gonna have the failures. Because if you’re not, I mean, you’re not really pushing yourself. You’re not really being courageous. You’re not really trying out there. You’re just,
12:00
you know, playing it safe. And I don’t think that’s what Jesus wants us to do. The disciples didn’t play it safe. The people who did really powerful, amazing things in the Bible, they weren’t playing it safe. They were big and larger than life. One thing that’s interesting that just came to mind is when Jesus was in his hometown, it said he couldn’t do mighty miracles. And the thing is, I wonder what that meant? Like, how did he know he couldn’t do mighty miracles? Did he just intuit that? Like, he just knew that, you know, the strength, the power of God was not present because of their lack of faith? Or did he try to do mighty miracles and he wasn’t able to, because of their lack of faith? It’s interesting, it’s interesting to think about that, that the God of the universe in flesh, because of our lack of faith, wasn’t able to do mighty miracles. So I don’t know about that. But that’s also a lesson to you have, if you don’t, step out in faith, in whatever way, it means. God can’t use you in mighty ways. So if you’ve made a mistake, don’t swear off that thing forever. Don’t say, Oh, well, I you know, you know, I messed up with my kids. So I can’t go in and try to repair it. I just need to, you know, live my life. Apart from it. Like that’s not that’s not the right thing. Or I messed up with my, my wife, you know, the only possibility is divorced, I messed up with my husband. So, you know, I can’t repair it and go in and take ownership and apologize and move forward. We can, people are changeable. People do heal people do forgive. God can give the grace for those things. And we can have faith that he will. So, what I’m what am I going to summarize here is number one, normalizing embarrassment and failure. That’s normal. And number two, that is why Jesus came for our failures for our sin. He came, He took it upon himself and went to the cross, so that our failures, which should result in eternal damnation, because it’s separated us from the God who deserves all holiness and power. He took himself human form, came and died for our sins. He did that. So we don’t have to carry our embarrassment and failures anymore. Our shame, we give it to him and say, God, I trust you with this. I trust that I’m not going to have to carry this anymore. Number three, learn from it, decide that you’re not doing this by yourself. Moment by moment, you need his strength, you need his help. The other piece number four, is don’t be consumed by it. Have some structure or processes in your life that help you to process these things? Because no, we don’t want to repeat those actions. So what does it mean to get a process in place where that won’t happen anymore. So for pornography, there’s lots of accountability groups, or there’s lots of things to help you with that, for sex addiction, that’s same thing, do some research around it, get started on that process. For even for women, if if you know, sexual intimacy is important to your marriage, but you’re not doing it, get some help get some support around that, get accountability around that help to increase your libido, all sorts of things. If you’re a husband, and you know you are getting to a place where you just feel like your wife is throwing in the towel, or you are, you know, it’s over between you because you just don’t know what to do next. Get in a program get in a course, yes, I have those things to help you go to delight your marriage.com/cc, we’ll get you in the right thing based on where you are to help transform your marriage. But aside from that, you know, a huge process that I think is really important is journaling. Because that allows you to slow down your mind to focus on the issue. And ask God to help you see it clearly. help you to learn from this and grow from this and ask him while you’re journaling, like God, show me the way I should learn from this. Show me how I should grow from this.
17:03
And then have some processes in your life that help you day by day to get better. To get better at those things. I think I’m on number six here is we don’t have to tackle every growth opportunity. At every stage. It’s just, it’s overwhelming. So again, you’re listening because you’re a grower, you want to change, you want to get better, which I commend, and that’s awesome. But if you let yourself swirl in growth all the time on every subject, I mean, there’s a million things we need to grow in, you will feel overwhelmed and be really probably just flailing around rather than actually growing in a certain direction. So that’s a prayer topic of God, where do you want me to grow in this season? What’s most important in this season? And now that we’re entering the second quarter, or the third quarter of the year, I encourage that to be a process for you is spend some time alone, spend some time in nature. Have your journal pray with God, just, you know, what do you want this season to be about? How do you want me to grow in this season? And ask him to and figure out what that looks like for you in this season. Be intentional about your seasons, because God has a plan for you this season. You know he has a will for you. It’s it’s too clear on the Bible. We’re not just supposed to be paddling through he has a will for us we have to pursue what His will is for us. And it requires intimacy with Jesus to even get there.
18:51
Alright, number seven is the fear of the Lord. That’s something I pray for most mornings if I get my routine, fully accomplished, like I try to.
19:03
But the fear of the Lord, it says is the beginning of wisdom. You know, when we’re thinking about, Oh my gosh, I failed or Gosh, all these people know how badly I did with x or whatever. When we get started to get consumed by that. You know, it’s really fascinating what the Bible says about fear and fearing man. It says in Matthew 1028, and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell Are not two sparrows sold for a penny and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not there for you are of more value than many sparrows. So I think this is really powerful to think about, because when we fear God, it puts everything in perspective. We’re no longer thinking about, Oh my gosh, what did they think of me? Or oh my gosh, they don’t like me anymore. Oh, my gosh, I’m, you know, just the things that run through our head all the time I have kind of an acquaintance, I would say. But one thing she says is what people think is none of my business. And I think that’s so true, what others think, is none of my business. Right? It’s not if God wanted us to know what other people think of us, he would make it clear. And really, it’s a gift that we don’t have feedback all the time from tons of people. I mean, that would be exhausting and hurtful. And the thoughts of people change, from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, from different conversations, different conversation. I mean, it just changes. But one thing that we really need to pursue is God’s opinion of us. What is his opinion of this situation? What is his opinion of our response to this situation? Are we talking to my mom the other day, and she said, I was telling her about a situation that I felt like I failed in I felt like I made a mistake. And, and, you know, I was like, It’s hard when you’re a coach, to make a mistake. And it just feels like you’ve been, you know, teaching everyone, you’ve got all your stuff together, and then you make a mistake. And, you know, it’s embarrassing. And she said, you know, what you’re, you’re, you’re coaching people on all these these ways. But you’re also an example to them, when you do make a mistake, because we all make mistakes. And I thought that was really true. Like, I have an opportunity to process my mistakes in a way that I want others to process their mistakes, to grow from it not feel condemned from it not go under the enemy’s hold of, oh, my gosh, I’m such a failure. No, we instead get to grow from these things. And get to remember that I’m not living before people. That’s not the purpose here. I want to grow into what God wants me to be. And that’s the opportunity day in and day out is to grow is to change. And hopefully, that’s our posture. In this life is I’m always growing, I’m always learning. And if we are always learning and growing, then hopefully, what we said yesterday is different than what we’re saying today. Because we’re growing. And gosh, you know, speaking of mistakes, one thing I said the other day in a podcast, maybe you heard it, I said something like, I don’t read other marriage stuff, this is how I get my material, because I want to be fresh and new for you. And and I realized in thinking that in saying that I was like no, the truth is I go through seasons of reading, specifically about marriage. Because sometimes Yeah, I want to hear what others are thinking and saying on this topic. It’s important and it helps refine my thoughts. And it encourages me to think new things and encourage and help others. So I think it’s more of I’m not necessarily when I wrote recorded that I’m not going through a season where I’m reading and listening and learning from others. But the truth is, I’m constantly learning and listening and in growing from others perspectives and that kind of thing. So speaking mistakes, let me correct that one for you. But anyway, that is the thing we’re living before God. Ultimately, when we get before Jesus, it’s just not gonna matter what other people thought of us. You know, unless it was I attracted people towards Jesus.
24:05
I mean, that’s what matters, right? Making disciples of Jesus attracting them towards Jesus, by the way, I live in love. But it’s not gonna matter whether they, you know, thought good or bad things about me or judge me certain ways or, you know, whatever frivolous thing is going through our heads and concerning us day in a day out, like, you know, we just don’t need our minds consumed by that. And I, you know, again, this is a growth piece for me, I’m, I’m, I’m having to learn that day in and day out that whether it’s what my kids are wearing, whether it’s how my hair looks, whether it’s what I said and somebody misunderstood the way or my intentions about what I was saying like ultimately What matters is who I became through that. How I Learned how I grew, and we can always grow, we always can grow in every situation. So fearing God puts it all in perspective, because one day we’re meeting, we’re going to be meeting him face to face. So the fear of man is going to make a slip up. But the fear of God is going to write us, it’s going to put us on the right track. And the thing that I love about this particular batch of strict scriptures in Matthew 10, is that do not feel those killed. Do not fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body and hell. But then it says, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and none of them will fall to the ground, apart from your father. But even the hairs on your head are all numbered. Fear or not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows. So the fact that you fear God doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care about you know, he cares about you. He knows the hairs on your head. But if you don’t have fear of him, life is not in perspective. You’re fearing the wrong things. I mean, we’re gonna fear it’s kind of, I don’t know, a human experience. That’s just the way we’re made up as humans. It’s who we fear that matters. Are we living our life with a perspective of God, and eternity and his plan? And he is actually, this is his story, not ours? This is his purposes in the world. Are we fearing? God? Or are we thinking we’re the main character? It’s all about us? And if people don’t like us, it’s a big deal and blah, blah, blah? Or is it? No, this is God’s story, I get to be a part of his plan. I get to have a little tiny sliver of his plan in the world. I’m fearing God, and yet he cares about me. I was I was watching the making of a movie recently, it was really cool, because it was all the behind the scenes of all the makeup and all the stuff that they did to make this really cool movie. And I just thought about, you know, God is like that director. You know, not, not this particular director, I’m not saying that this guy is, you know, incredible. It’s more of just I’ve heard this metaphor before. It’s not originally, it’s not mine. Originally, I think it came from a pastor named Francis Chan. And I love him if you have if you want to just be inspired, and just awed by God’s love shone through man and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It’s beautiful to see Francis Chan. Anyway, he, he says, This is God’s movie. It’s not ours. This is his story, we get to be a part of it. But when I think about when I was watching this, the special about how they made this movie, I was thinking about, you know, God. You know, every extra. Yeah, they only had a tiny part in the movie. But if you think about God, yes, you only have a tiny part in the movie, the fear of God is going to give you the right perspective on your role. You know, you’ll mess up the movie, if you think you’re too awesome, right? You’re gonna mess it up. You’re gonna take the spotlight away from, from, what it’s supposed to be about Jesus, and his incredible pneus.
28:59
And what he wants to do, I mean, that’s the story. But when you have it in right perspective, you get to be that tiny, tiny sliver of the story. And yet realize that God loves you, and He loves your part in the story. I think that’ll help you realize that you can have fear of God and be deeply, deeply loved by Him. Even the hairs of your head are numbered. Again, like that director, I mean, they extras kind of fear that guy, they’re like, I don’t want to get in the way. I might get fired. I might, you know, whatever. They’re gonna do their part. But man, think about God, he has the hairs of your head numbered. It matters to him your part in this movie. In this story, it matters So the fact that you’re learning the fact that you’re growing from your mistakes, the fact that you’re not being consumed by them and deciding, I’m just not going to be that in my role, because I messed up too bad and it’s like God is rooting for you, he has a place for you in his story. Don’t, you didn’t just fall out of the game. Put yourself back in there, decide God’s grace is enough for you, Jesus died for you, you get to get back in the game. Just look at scripture, you get to see people who failed miserably. And yet God didn’t say okay, you’re out, you’re done. No, they got to get back in the game. Let that be your failure, your embarrassment, your mess up. Let it be a catalyst for growth and change for you. So let’s pray. Father, I lift up this person, whatever they needed from this. Father, give them a grace, to fear you, to fear you to put their life in true perspective. When they really take a moment to pause and say, golly, golly, what is this about? What story am I in? What part do I have to play? Yes, it’s tiny. But let me be faithful to the tiny thing I get to do. Let us do that. Let me do that God, and let our failures not get in the way of us doing that part. And instead propel us to do it better, to do our part better and to just jump into your grace and, and jump on the delete button of the past and just thank you, God for teaching us. Thank you, God for growing us. You took my shame. You took the pain of the past. You took my guilt. It is done. I get to walk in white robes now. totally clean. I ask for that for the person listening. God that they’ve made mistakes. Yes. Though my sin was as crimson blood now. I’ve been washed, white as snow. Give us that grace. Lord, we love you. We bless you. We thank you that we get to be in your story. Thank you for loving us. Amen. And thank you listener for listening. God bless you. I look forward to speaking to you again next week. And you know if you’re ready to find out if a program or a way that me or my team can help you go ahead to delight your marriage.com/cc and we’ll dig in together. God bless you. I love you. Praying for you. Bye