JUNE 27, 2025

 “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” 

― Denis Waitley

JOB 10-12

13“To God belong wisdom and power;

counsel and understanding are his.

14What he tears down cannot be rebuilt;

those he imprisons cannot be released.

15If he holds back the waters, there is drought;

if he lets them loose, they devastate the land.

16To him belong strength and insight;

both deceived and deceiver are his.

17He leads rulers away stripped

and makes fools of judges.

18He takes off the shackles put on by kings

and ties a loincloth^b around their waist.

19He leads priests away stripped

and overthrows officials long established.

20He silences the lips of trusted advisers

and takes away the discernment of elders.

21He pours contempt on nobles

and disarms the mighty.

22He reveals the deep things of darkness

and brings utter darkness into the light.

23He makes nations great, and destroys them;

he enlarges nations, and disperses them.

24He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason;

he makes them wander in a trackless waste.

25They grope in darkness with no light;

he makes them stagger like drunkards.(12:13-25)

ACTS 8:1-25

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. 2Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.

JOURNAL 

How does Saul become Paul? How does a man breathing murderous threats against the church (Acts 8:3) become the greatest missionary and author of much of the New Testament? It defies logic. It doesn’t follow a clean arc of redemption. But that’s the point, God does not work by our formulas.

As Job declares in Job 12:13–25, “To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.” He tears down what no man can rebuild. He binds and releases. He elevates nations and disperses them. He exposes darkness and brings it into light. Job understood what we so often forget: God alone authors both the rise and the fall. And within that, He is still good.

The persecution in Acts 8 seems like a moment of defeat. Stephen is buried. Saul is dragging believers into prison. But look closer: it is through this persecution that the church is scattered, and the gospel begins to move outward. What looked like loss was actually divine multiplication. Failure is not the end, it is often the beginning.

God does not avoid the mess. He enters it. And He allows us to walk through it—not around it. The only way through is through.

There’s a temptation in me and in all of us, to avoid the hard parts of life, the confusing chapters of Scripture, the painful trials of the present moment. But as Job models, and as Isaiah affirms, these very hardships are where God reveals His strength. “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” (Isaiah 40:29). Not by removing the hardship, but by renewing the heart within it.

Sometimes I want a life that’s simple, predictable, fair. But what God offers me is far greater: a life that is purposeful, sanctifying, and eternally significant. He doesn't promise that I won't grow tired or fall—He promises to lift me when I do.

And so I return to Denis Waitley’s wisdom: “Failure is delay, not defeat.” Yes, the path is often detoured. Yes, the story includes pain. But every setback is an invitation, to deeper trust, to greater intimacy with God, to a more resilient and refined self.

So today, I receive this life as a gift. It will hold conflict. It will test me. But it will also shape me into who I was meant to become.  For it is there, when I am at my weakest, that He makes me soar.

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

29He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

30Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

31but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

ISAIAH 40:28-31