“Do Not Fear Failure…” (2 Corinthians 7:10)

She entered the local beauty contest and failed…six times. Undaunted, she persevered and on the seventh time, she won. Ultimately, she qualified to compete in the Miss USA pageant and won in 2016. She is Deshauna Barber, a Captain in the United States Army Reserve. Her motivational quote recounting her experience is inspiring. 

“Do not fear failure but please be terrified of regret…Don’t be afraid of nos, be afraid of the possibility of yes that you have prematurely destroyed.”

It is difficult to escape feelings of regret when we have failed. The “What if?” scenarios. The “If only I did this…”. The list is endless and I have experienced all of them. The result is usually feelings of guilt and it saps my will to continue to move forward with life. The American poet, John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’ “ How does God want us to deal with regret? 

For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.

2 Corinthians 7:10 (NLT)

Captain Barber never regretted her efforts, even after failing six times. She looked forward, not backward. God asks the same of His children of faith. We do not wallow in our failures. We look outward and upward to Jesus Christ, the author of our faith. He gave up His unimaginable glory in Heaven to experience the same sorrows and pains that we all experience. He wants to carry our burdens, freeing us to live a life in gratitude for what He has done rather than to live a life in regret and imprisoned by our own grief.

Love and trust in the Lord; seek His will in your life.

YouTube@theBereansblog

https://youtube.com/shorts/U_oJRfLcRcs?feature=share