Are you really a failure.

What if you’ve done everything you should and nothing turns out like you thought it would? You don’t even feel or think the way you thought you would after all the hard work. You start to wonder if you’ve failed. You sure feel like a failure. Discouraged, disheartened, and tired.

I guess a better question is ‘How do you define failure?’ We spend so much time focused on success, we may not recognize failure quick enough to stop it.

To be a failure means to be be unsuccessful, stop doing something, stop functioning or growing, collapse financially, let somebody down, or becoming weaker. You want to be successful in your job, with your friends, in your community, in your family, even pursuing the Lord. The holy calling to grow in the Lord is a good one.

‘The first shall be last and the last shall be first’ is right and true, yet sometimes only feels good when you’re doing something that is recognized as successful. Not when you’ve poured your sweat and heart into a project, a job, a person that you love and expectations weren’t met. Not even close. So, of course, to be a failure means you don’t meet expectations and it appears you have failed.

But what does success really look like? For you, your family, or your job? The fruit that you produce could depend on this answer.

-Is success being recognized by those you respect, the ones that have influenced you? Without the recognition, is that really failure?

-Is success having a long-awaited dream fulfilled? What if the life-long journey was the real dream?

Is success paying off your debt and feeling secure with money to spare in your account? What if your life is more beautiful when you rely daily on the Lord for your every need?

-Is success even important? Maybe it is. But what if it isn’t and that’s what you’ve been spending all your energy towards?

I’ve come to learn loving obedience to the One I obey is far more important than an outside label of success. We suffer and overcome side by side. Ambition is not condemned, but God has Kingdom ambition for us to serve others and to restore us.

And whether my fruit looks different than the next branch, isn’t as big, or doesn’t yield a crop at all this month, I am connected to the Living Vine. I'm tied in so deeply that success or failure of my love fruit is no longer up to me, but the Vine and the Gardner. And the One we call the Vine, Jesus, will never judge us not good enough, but only strengthen us to continue to grow and provide the power to produce fruit and succeed in obedience.