Sports Spectrum Daily Devotional: Friday, September 25

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” — Psalm 73:26

Learning from Failure

Are you afraid to fail?

If so, the game of baseball probably isn’t for you. The best hitters typically fail about 70 percent of the time, and usually on a big, televised stage. You can imagine it’s tough for those within the game — scouts, writers, agents and those in front offices — whose primary goal is to predict future stars of the game. It’s just so hard to predict what people will do, especially in a sport where failure occurs so often.

Our failures aren’t always magnified like those of athletes, but our failures can be much more costly. As followers of Christ, we all struggle at times to live up to expectations, as we all sin.

Thankfully, we have a Lord and Savior in Jesus who has died for our sins, and God gives us forgiveness when we fail. God also gives us the ability to follow Him, and He provides us with special gifts and talents to do wonderful things in His Name, despite being imperfect people. Even though we fail at times, we welcome the challenge of learning from our mistakes, which allows us to help not only ourselves but others. It also makes getting it right — getting that base hit, following Jesus — feel that much better.

Let’s give God praise today for sending His Son, Jesus, and for being there for us. He helps us through our adversity and helps us conquer our fear of failure.

Thank You, Lord, for sending Your Son, Jesus, to die for our sins, as well as for Your forgiveness. Thank You for the gifts You’ve given us through our special abilities. Help us to forever give You praise through our actions and our success in the little things. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

— James Weisser

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