Have you ever felt like a failure? Have you ever struggled with feelings of inferiority, worthlessness and inadequacy? Maybe you’ve suffered from low self-esteem all your life because deep down inside you’ve accepted the fact that when everything is said and done you really are a loser? Maybe life has beaten you down in so many ways that you can’t help feeling like one? Maybe you feel good about yourself for a while but those nagging feelings of failure keep coming back. They are like a broken record that keeps repeating itself over and over in your head. Satan is a master at accusing us of being failures, losers and “no-hopers” but we are even better at it than him.
Maybe it stems from parental abuse. Maybe as a child you were told that you were a failure and that would never amount to anything. Maybe you were constantly made fun of and bullied as a child or teenager. Maybe you failed at something early in life that made an indelible impression. Many look back to a long list of failures. horrible mistakes, bad choices, failed relationships, failed marriages, failed parenting, failed friendships, failed careers, failed jobs, failed ministries, failed character or failed at responsibility? Maybe you succeeded at some things but you still feel like a failure? Maybe the only thing you ever succeeded at was being a failure. Whatever the cause, feelings of failure have haunted you relentlessly over the years.
In “It Was a wonderful Life”, one of the most beloved movies in American cinema, George Bailey is a man who has come to a point in his life where he feels that he is a hopeless failure. He looks back on his life and sees only failure and disappointment. As he aged, he has seen his youth, his dreams and the opportunities pass him by. He has never traveled to the exotic places he had longed to see or experienced the great adventures he had always dreamed of. He has never gotten the chance to fulfill his dreams or life ambitions and must watch his friends and family’s success stories from the sidelines. He feels like a total failure and is ready to take his when Clarence the angel intervenes. There is a scene at the end of the movie when George is surrounded by friends and well-wishers where he opens a card from Clarence that says, “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.” It’s a nice sentiment but is it true? Yes and no.
Are you really the failure you make yourself out to be? Are you really the failure that others have made you out to be? The answer depends upon our relationship with Him. In reality, Clarence’s card is only true for those who have come to know God. We have a friend in God. Jesus said, “You are My friends” and “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for His friends.” (John 15:13,14 & 15) Even if everyone turned against you, rejected you, betrayed you and abandoned you would still have a faithful friend in Jesus. He’s the friend that always walks in when everyone else has walked out. We were all failures before we knew Him. There are no exceptions. Even the most successful man in the eyes of the world is an abject failure without Christ.
But in Him there are no failures. We were all failures in the past but now He looks past our sins and failures and sees you washed in the blood, redeemed, justified, sanctified, without sin or blemish as if we had never sinned or failed before.
Ultimately, it is not how we see ourselves that counts but how God sees us and He doesn’t see us as failures or losers. If you to say to me, “Tell me my life means something; Tell me my life counted; Tell me I wasn’t failure” I would tell you that God so loved you that He gave His only begotten son for you so that we could have a relationship with Him for eternity. He gave His very life for us when we were still enemies. How much more does He love us now that we are His friends? Maybe in the eyes of the world we will never count for much but in His eyes, we will count for eternity. Each of us are precious and special to Him. Friendship with Jesus is the greatest success story ever told. No man is a failure who is a friend of Jesus and “Oh What A Friend We Have in Jesus!”