What is your biggest failure in life?

What is your smallest failure in life?

If you had the ability to go back and change one thing, what would it be?

This week I got a 66 on one of my exams. Recently I have been riding the 80 mark, which I have been okay with and usually I get wrecked on my homework essays, but other than that I’ve been able to keep up enough to pass. This week was just an all around rough week for me. On Saturday I went to the prayer night at the Holy Sepulchre, which was amazing. During that time I asked that the Lord would forgive me for not forgiving some people in my life. I asked that if I was forgiven and I could move on, to give me something, some kind of sign. Recently I’ve been having dreams over and over again which is unusual. Usually I don’t have repetitive dreams. Even when they are prophetic, they usually only occur once. But this following week I had two dreams that would (up until this point) end those reoccurring dreams: my sign that I could move on.

It felt so good to have those dreams as signs that I was forgiven and that I could move on. But for some reason almost all week I kept thinking about it. I kept thinking, “I wish I would have done this different” or “I wish things would have went better” etc, etc. I had that issue stuck in my mind all week. I daydreamed more last week than I have the entire Ulpan and I just did poorly on all of my work. And I think for me, this was another way of the Holy Spirit explaining something to me, but I’ll get to here in a second. But even though I was forgiven, I still dwelt on it because I still feel hurt. So since I wasn’t able to completely let go, it screwed up my work. The whole situation has made me very tired, weary and all around hurt.

I decided to look at things through my own perspective rather than God’s perspective. I decided to listen to the lies of the enemy rather than see how God has used these failures, scars and hurts for his redemptive purpose. Not to be over spiritual here, but this exam has a spiritual aspect to it. There are going to be times when we fail. There are going to be times when we struggle and feel hurt. There are going to be times that we would just rather run away or as I said earlier this week, “I just want to throw myself in front of a bus” (You can ask my Ulpan friends. I think I said it at least 5 times last week). But God has better plans.

I got a 66 on my exam. But it would be foolish to spend the next week complaining and being upset over it. It would be even more foolish of me to not study at all because I’m so upset! Rather, I need to study harder. I need to Focus more on my work and what I need to be doing to succeed and pass the next test that comes quickly the next week (I hope you’re seeing the spiritual analogy here). The same goes for our tough situations. Yeah it sucks sometimes. But it’s foolish for us to sit around complaining, moping or whatever we do when we’re sad. It’s those times of failure that help us examine and evaluate ourselves and where we need to make adjustments. Last year I tweeted something I thought was relevant to this:

 What are some adjustments you need to make? What are some situations that you simply just need to move on from? Ask the Holy Spirit, ask yourself and maybe ask your closest friends. Outside opinions can sometimes help push you to make those tough decisions. Take a step today but don’t just sit there. Don’t keep dwelling on the same old bad things that happened in the past. You can’t change the past, but you can change your future and most importantly, you can change your today!

Some cliché but important verses to read: Romans 5:1-5, Isaiah 40: 27-31, Matthew 6: 9-15.