Throughout my life, God has blessed me abundantly. In my sixteen years of schooling, leadership positions, ongoing job offerings, travelling adventures and ministry opportunities, “[God has given me] the desire[s] of [my] heart and [has made] all [my] plans succeed (Psalm 20:4).” I cannot remember a time when I’ve ever experienced failure, because the few times that I have, God had something bigger and better planned that went beyond what I desired or thought was a success.
Coming up to the end of the race, many of us are working out what the next stage in our lives will look like. Learning Mandarin and doing life in Taiwan has been on my radar, therefore I have been looking at potential teaching positions online for the past few weeks. If you know me, you would know that I have a Primary Education degree and I’ve had 3 years of experience working in the field as a Visual Arts teacher and some days as a Classroom teacher. Knowing this, you would think that I would be confident going back to teaching at a school again but unexpectedly, I have been feeling quite the opposite. I have found myself feeling inadequate and fearful of potentially failing at my job which has prevented me from applying for schools. But why, especially when I have a degree and experience in it? I’ve asked myself this question so many times this month and often I would make the excuse that my passion for teaching is fading, but is it really? My squad mates, who have watched me teach multiple times on this race will tell me it’s not.
The truth is, I don’t like doing things that I know I won’t succeed in or do a good job at. All the years I’ve experienced success has made me become this person that always needs to achieve things. This in turn has grown my biggest struggle with pride, but the bigger truth is, all my achievements have never been my doing! God says, “[I] make all your plans succeed” and as I continue to write about ‘all the years I’ve succeeded in my life…,’ I come to the realisation that it has never been because of me. I may have worked hard but it has always been God that has given me success. This also means that if I fail, God has allowed it to happen in order to teach me a lesson and grow me to be more like Him. So even though I may get a job that I may be unqualified in or have the potential to fail at (and that’s if God even chooses to bless me with a job), it will be God who will make me succeed or fail. I can’t achieve anything on my own, but God hears the desires of our hearts and chooses to grant them to us nonetheless (Psalm 21:2a).
What aspect in your life are you feeling inadequate or have the fear of failure in? God wants to answer you in your distress, protect you, send you help, grant you support, give you the desires of your heart AND make your plans succeed like he says in Psalm 20. He just wants us to trust him, believe that He is sovereign and has the desire to bring about His blessings. Do you believe it?
