05 – Lisa - “I failed, is God’s promise now void in my life?”
“Subject: Lisa from NZ has found you.
Message: Hi Michael,
My name is Lisa, I found you a couple of weeks ago after my sister-in-Law sent me a text of encouragement. Reading it, I came across a sentence that really baffled me. It has made me quite upset. I couldn’t make sense of it, as my journey had gone terribly pear shaped and what I once believed to be true didn’t seem to be now.
I began to panic, and I needed answers from God, but I wasn’t hearing from Him like I used to. So I Googled it, the whole sentence and the only thing to pop up was your story “Trusting God in the Storm”. After watching it I noticed something had changed in me, and my hardness for God stared to dissolve. I’m back talking to him and I’m finding great comfort in your teaching. I’ve even started your John 7.17 challenge.
My story begins (very short version) back in 2010 with my marriage separation. Even though my husband claimed to know God he wasn’t living a Godly life. It involved drugs and alcohol, this wasn’t the way I lived, I was the opposite, trying to please God, so we clashed. In the end not only did I leave due to this but also due to being a victim of his abuse and violent behavior, taking our two-year-old daughter with me.
After that, for over three years God really began to speak to me, with confirmation after confirmation.
He told me that my husband would be rebirthed and the marriage that was now dead would be resurrected and restored. Those were the hardest years of my life. The pain and the betrayal as I watched my husband have a child to his girlfriend, at the time, while I’m trying not to look at the natural and only at God. It was soooo hard! Some days I was strong, and others I was a wreck. I kept asking myself...how long do I have to wait?
On the fourth year I had decided I needed to find peace and put an end to this suffering. I couldn’t keep going on like this. I ended up believing that I must not have given it to God properly, for if I had, surely the pain and suffering would have ceased by now. So with me believing I was handing it over to God once and for all, in fact from what I now know today, after listening to your message “How to find Gods help through painful suffering”, I chucked it all in and binned it!!!
I walked away from God’s instructions and call on my life. I put myself on a dating web site, and started to take life back into my own hands, to then find my husband walk back into my life. I thought, “Is this it!!!.. could this be my promise from God?”
But as you can probably imagine after giving my marriage a good shot, I’m back to where I stared as of a month ago. Walking away from the same old relationship. Feeling like a hamster on a hamster wheel. Tired, hurt, disillusioned, confused and angry at myself.
Last Friday while listening to your same message I mentioned above, you bought up the Scripture Palms 123 that you quoted toward the end. This was the same Scripture God gave me in a dream a few years ago. When I heard this I couldn’t believe my ears!!! That was for me!!!! That was my Scripture!!! And look I have failed God!!!! Not only God, but myself and all the people I shared my beliefs with, hoping that one day the promise would bring witness to them glorifying God....and now that’s gone!!! Now God doesn’t get the glory. What have I done!!! How could I do this to Him??
The day I received this revelation I wailed like I never have before, and didn’t think I would ever stop. I failed!!!
So my questions to you Michael are:
Hearing your understanding on divorce, where do I sit with that, with God, due to my situation?
And two, now knowing that I have failed what do I do now?
Does the promise still apply or is it void?
And just your thoughts on the whole matter if that’s Ok?
Thanks for your time in listening to me. I really appreciate it. And I so look forward to your response.”
The Unexpected Path: Discovering God's Purpose in Our Mistakes
Have you ever, like Lisa, felt like a failure, like you messed up too badly, and God could never use you again, or that His promise to you, was now void? Have you stumbled, fallen, and felt the weight of your mistakes crushing you? Today's message is about God's incredible love for the rejected, the failed, the downcast and the weak – His love for you.
Our sister Lisa (and my beloved wife), like many of us, has experienced this feeling of failure, when what she believed to be a promise for God’s restoration of her marriage, where there had been abuse, suddenly looked ended once again in bitter disappointment and her walking away from what she believed had been God’s promise. But God, in His infinite wisdom, directed her in the most unlikely way, to the story Trusting God in the Storm, and it was perfectly timed just for her. This divine guidance speaks to the very heart of God’s providence. As Psalm 145:18 tells us, “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” Lisa’s heartfelt plea for help reached the ears of a loving Father, who orchestrated this seemingly random encounter.
This is a testament to how God works – in ways we can’t comprehend. He sees the bigger picture, the intricate tapestry of our lives, and weaves together events for our ultimate good. This should encourage us to hold onto the truths we know, to cling to the moments where we feel His presence, even amidst our failures.
God, in His mercy, often allows us to experience the consequences of our own choices. He lets us build lives apart from Him, accumulating things we think will bring happiness, only to realize they leave us empty. Like the prodigal son, we often chase after fleeting pleasures, only to find ourselves longing for the Father’s embrace. We, too often, surrender our will conditionally, saying, "God, fix this for me," instead of fully abandoning our plans and desires to His perfect will. As Jesus said in Luke 14:33, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
But even in our mess, God is there. He longs for us to return to Him, to dive into His word and discover His truth. He desires not just our surrender, but the complete abandonment of our will to His. This isn't about giving up, but about giving over – releasing our grip on the steering wheel of our lives and trusting Him to guide us.
Don’t fret about your failures, or your unmet expectations. Don’t let the enemy whisper lies of worthlessness. Bring your broken pieces to God. He loves the rejects, the failures, the downcast. He sees your hunger for His truth, for His presence, for His life to the full. He is waiting to redeem your story, to turn your second, third, or even hundredth failure into a testimony of His grace. Be encouraged, for God loves you, and He is near.
