Feel Like a Failure? Do This!

“Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:23 NKJV).

Do you feel like a failure today? If so, you’re not alone–but there is something you can do and be comforted at, right now, that will mean SOMETHING is going right, no matter how bad or how dire your circumstances look.

When things don’t go right in life, it’s easy to take it personally.

When your plans and expectations don’t happen the way they should have …

When what was supposed to work out doesn’t work out …

When things appear to get worse, instead of getting better …

It can be easy to look at those things and assign blame to yourself.

I do this pretty often, unfortunately, and I find myself thinking things like:

• Perhaps if my timing had been better …
• If I had just worked harder? …
• If I had not lost my sense of urgency, I would have gotten things done faster …
• If I, if I, if I. The list goes on.

And sometimes these things are true, but other times they are not. And true or not, they are ALWAYS things that we need to submit to the Lord–so He can either negate the lie or help us overcome any bad habits. We cannot carry these thoughts ourselves.

Nevertheless, when a lot of things go wrong at once, or all in a row, it is super-easy to start assigning each failure to yourself and feel really bad about yourself, because you tell yourself that it’s your fault.

Whether something is your fault or not is not the subject of this blog post.

It is very likely that the things you have been feeling bad about are not your fault at all.

Of course, I realize that some things could be your fault. We are all human, and we all make mistakes sometimes. But, lots of circumstances happen in this life that could not have been avoided.

Therefore, if you are struggling today with feeling like you’re a failure and that problems must be your fault, I encourage you to take each circumstance on your heart to Jesus and let Him talk to you about them:

• Ask Him to give you His wisdom in each area;
• Ask Him to advise you and counsel you in each area;
• Pray that He will show you any ways you need to change or do things differently, if there are such ways/areas; and
• Ask Him to remove from you any influence of the spirit of condemnation, and command the spirit of condemnation to LEAVE in Jesus’ name (and ask Holy Spirit to fil lyou in that place), for Romans 8:1 tells us:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1 NKJV).

But sometimes, when you feel like a failure, you just need SOMETHING to go right–and you need to know that you are doing something right that you didn’t mess up.

Ask me how I know. 🙂

And recently, as I was feeling bad about a lot of things that didn’t go as planned, the Lord quickened a Scripture in my heart.

I was reading through the Psalms, and this verse just seemed to leap off the page into my heart. (It is always God’s Holy Spirit speaking to you when that happens!)

The verse is Psalm 50:23, and it really impacted me. I have been applying this verse purposely since that time in this season in which lots of things have gone wrong for me, and in which I have been tending to beat myself up because of them.

Psalm 50:23 says:

“Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:23 NKJV).

I love how concrete this verse is.

In this verse, God gives us a clue about something we can ABSOLUTELY do, in order to get ABSOLUTE results. It’s not in the same category of activities as our human or earthly plans, in which we do our very best, but the results may or may not come.

Also, this clue that God gives us is not like the kind of thing where we have to wish and wait and hope for the Lord to bless our work, knowing that He will bless it–even when the blessings don’t show up quite as fast as we hope.

No. In this Scripture, we have something concrete that we can do right now.

And when we do the thing right now, we get automatic, concrete results right now.

And what is that thing?

It’s offering praise to the Lord–because He says, “Whoever offers praise glorifies Me ….”

I love that because the burning, consuming desire of my life is to give God glory.

I love Him so much, and I want to be with Him always. I want to adore Him and worship Him always. I want to always be lost in His presence. I want to worship Him and obey Him in all things.

And I want to honor Him and thank Him and glorify Him–lifting up the name of Jesus–not only because He deserves it, but also to warm His heart, and also so that He will use something about my life to draw all men to Himself.

As Jesus said in John 12:32:

“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself” (John 12:32 NKJV).

And no matter how bad we feel at any given moment, Psalm 50:23 tells us that we can do something RIGHT NOW that will absolutely glorify Jesus.

Again, that Scripture says:

“Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:23 NKJV).

Isn’t that beautiful?

It’s beautiful because it gives us an assignment with guaranteed results. Right now, wherever you are, and wherever I am, and no matter what we are doing, you and I can stop right now and offer praise to the Lord:

• lifting our hands in a moment of holy worship;
• thanking Him and praising Him for His goodness to each of us individually;
• putting on a heartfelt worship song and worshipping Him to your favorite tune;
• or any other way that you praise the Lord.

Right now, no matter how badly your day is going, you can do something that 100% glorifies God.

You don’t have to hope that it works out; your praise WILL work out. In the instant that you begin praising the Lord, even if you haven’t accomplished anything else today …

… even if everything you’ve done lately seems to have failed …

… even if you have goals and dreams and plans and none of them are happening …

… on days when you even wonder what you did wrong and why isn’t God helping you …

… right now, an avenue remains for you to glorify God this instant …

… and in a way that HE has already told us brings Him glory and is pleasing in His sight.

Yes: If you stop right now, or at any given moment, and offer God praise, it glorifies Him in that instant.

Even when you feel like a failure. Even if you feel like the biggest failure in the world. Even if you think you’ve got nothing going for you, and even if you secretly wonder if you have offended God somehow (even though you’ve searched your heart and invited Him to search it too, and you can’t find any sin to repent of).

Right now, you can do something concrete that absolutely fulfills your desire to glorify God.

You can stop right now and lift up your hands to Jesus. You can offer Him praise from your heart, no matter how badly things are going in your life–and He says that THAT ACTION of your praise glorifies Him in this instant.

Sometimes when you feel like a failure, and when nothing is going right, that little win of knowing that you can do something to honor the Lord and have no room for doubt means everything.

Even if you see no earthly success on the outside, and even if things don’t even appear to change in your outward circumstances, in this minute you can lift your hands to the Lord and praise Him, and He has said that that action glorifies Him.

That’s good news, friend. That’s reason enough to praise.

And it’s something you can do right now today that will have a 100% success rate.

Do you need a 100% success rate today?

Then stop and offer praise to the Lord. Doing so glorifies Him, and you will absolutely accomplish your purpose. He is worthy to be praised, and your desire is to glorify Him–and, in His kindness, He has given you and me this route to accomplish something today that will work 100%, and we don’t even have to see any outward results.

Beloved, you are not a failure. You are the chosen of the Lord. But on days when you feel like the failures and inadequacies are more than you can handle, remember this Scripture and praise God anyway. He who offers praise glorifies God. It’s concrete and instant, and He is worthy of our praise.

Do you need to stop right now and praise the Lord? Do you want to glorify Him with your praise? If so, leave a comment below–and bless the Lord AT ALL TIMES!