A Radio Preacher Said.....

[Liz]

I have an hour drive now to my job, and I was listening to a Christian Radio station. The preacher* said, "Sometimes God leads you down a road to fail, because of the lesson you needed to learn due to the falure. That just because you fail at something doesn't make you a failure, it just means you failed. But perhaps you needed to learn "some kind of lesson" that only failure could teach."

What do ya'll think?

I can't wrap my brain around his statement, along with that Bible verse that goes something like,"I know the plans I have made for you, plans to prosper you and not harm you."

I do believe that God can teach us when we fail, but I'm not sure He leads us to fail.

Anyways, tell me what you think.

*I have no idea what denomination he is, or even what his name is.

[Gerr]

I've heard or read it said that Thomas Edison tried 1000x before he found the right filament that gave light for his

electric bulb invention. He did not consider them failures. He said he just found 1000 ways that didn't work. So

perhaps failure is a state of mind. Some would say failures are just stepping stones to success. I am also reminded that when God called Abraham to move to the promised land, he also had to sojourn for a time in Egypt because of famine.

[Kevin H]

At the Seminary Dr. Davidson pointed out in his Psalm's class that the most accurate translation of the last line of Psalm 1:3 are the translations that read phrases such as "In whatever he does he succeeds" indicating that what we do may not succeed, but just because something we do fails does not mean that we have to fail but that in trusting in God we can still succeed.

Graham Maxwell tells the story about how the church was trying to decide whether the medical school should be at Loma Linda or in Los Angeles. There was a huge controversy over this, finally the church leaders said that the Holy Spirit lead them to decide that the medical school should be in Los Angeles.

Well, this choice proved to be a disaster and they realized that it indeed needed to be in Loma Linda. The Church leaders were talking about the embarrassment they felt having said that the Holy Spirit had lead them to Los Angeles. Dr. Maxwell told them that they had nothing to be embarrassed about. He pointed out the controversy that proceeded the choice and said that had they just chosen Loma Linda there would still be a lot of controversy over the choice, therefore the Holy Spirit lead them to go to Los Angeles to realize the problems so that Loma Linda could be chosen without the previous controversy.

It is the Holy Spirit's character to lead us through our choices and experiences; Dr. Jim Fleming calls this the non-assuming nature of God. When Jesus asked "Who do people say I am" and "Who do you say I am" and Peter (who was telling what the disciples as a whole was starting to conclude) said "You are the Christ..." Jesus said that Peter was blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal it to him but the Holy Spirit; meaning that it is not that Jesus said "I'm the messiah and this is why" or no one took Peter by his button hole and said "Look buddy, Jesus is the messiah" but the disciples would discuss and evaluate the evidence, then discuss and evaluate maybe making mistakes along the way but their frequent discussion and evaluating of the evidence (unfortunately interrupted by their discussion on who was to the highest among them) is how the Holy Spirit lead them to the conclusion as to who Jesus was.

The Lord lead Mary and Joseph, yet had they known then that Jesus was not just not going to be another great human like David or Samuel, but that this baby and boy was the eternal God himself, they could not have done their job, the Holy Spirit had to lead them into a narrow view so not to be overwhelmed by their responsibility.

Also the shut door theory; It was wrong, the Holy Spirit had to prove to us that it was wrong, yet in the mean time it did not harm us that we had this misunderstanding. And it did not harm those such as Fanny Crosby and others who had a vibrant relationship with God for us to have this misunderstanding. Yet this misunderstanding did help us to isolate some from other denominations to protect us from where most churches were going through at the time: splitting either into extremely conservative Fundamentalists and embracing Dispensationalism; or into the liberal modernism and unbelief.

For a better understanding may I recommend Ellen White's chapters on Pharaoh and on Caiaphas and Pilate, and C. S. Lewis' "The Horse and His Boy"

[Liz]

Thanks to both of you, that does make sense. I will look up those references Kevin H.

[skyblue888]

"His perfect humanity is that which all His followers may possess if they will be in subjection to God as He was." D.A.664.

For "With Him there can be no such thing as failure, loss, impossibility, or defeat." D.A.490 bottom of the page.

I guess we are falling way short of the Christian standard!

Could it be that that is why the second coming of Christ has been so long delayed?

sky