Yesterday I wrote about our weekend at winter camp. I went up to camp early, but by the time the rest of our group headed to camp the inclement weather forced them to turn around. I spent the first half of camp surrounded by other churches without my students. I felt really weird waiting for my students to get to camp and it took a while to understand what I was feeling.
I felt like a failure. I felt like I’d failed our students and their parents.
I don’t often feel like a failure. Even when I failed Pentateuch in seminary I didn’t feel like that much of a failure. When our students had to go back home while I sat at camp, though, I began to feel like I had let them down. I know I didn’t bring the storm or cause the other bus to get stuck, but for some reason I felt like I was to blame.
Thankfully I have an amazing wife and some great friends who let me know I wasn’t a failure and that I was believing Satan’s lies.
Yesterday I wrote that Satan wanted to use the craziness of our weekend to distract our students. I couldn’t see that he wanted to do the same thing to me. Just like God wanted to work in the lives of our students, he also wanted to work in and through my life. Satan wanted to derail me from that work by convincing me that I was a failure. If I thought I was a failure then how would God be able to use me?
Alycia and some friends were able to encourage me, though, and convince me of the truth. That’s why we need supportive and encouraging people in our lives, to help us see through Satan’s lies and believe the truth about who God created us to be.
God didn’t create any of us to be failures and we all need a little help remembering that sometimes.
How have others helped you see through Satan’s lies?
I like to think of Mark Hall from Casting Crowns as my very good personal friend. He often helps me separate the truth from the lies.
Sometimes God has to “break” us so He can put us back together again in a form He can use.