Day 24 of Embracing Your Creative Gifts: When Our Work Fails

 

Even though the act of creating a work was initiated and set up by God, the work itself may not be the point. There may be times when the process and what we learn through it may be what God wanted us to do. – J. Scott McElroy Finding Divine Inspiration

It is only natural for us to dream of success. We want our work to bear fruit of some type. It can be frustrating when we invite God into our work and do what we truly believe He is calling us to do, only to have it land with a thud when we put our work out into the world. Sometimes, no one even notices. We want to make a difference and do something good, but nothing seems to come from all our efforts.

These types of situations can be completely disheartening. We can feel rejected by God. We may feel like a failure, that nothing we do matters, that it is not worth trying again. We may feel envious of those whose efforts do get noticed and appreciated by the world. Why did God bless them and not us?

What happens if we reconsider our goal? What if we are more concerned with the process, with our obedience to God, rather than the finished product or the outcome. What if there was something that we were meant to learn from doing the work or going through the experience? Maybe that process will help us somewhere down the road when we take on a new project. Perhaps something we did will inspire someone else. It could be that the whole experience was simply meant to help us stay humble.

God’s ways are not our ways. We may never know how He may use our supposed failures. We can have faith that if we do invite God into our work, He will use it for good even if we don’t understand how.

Prayer

Dear God, it hurts so much when my work fails. Please help me to trust that you are using my work for good even when I don’t see it.

Action

Think back to a moment in your life when your best efforts seem to fail. Was there any good that came out of the experience? Do you sometimes feel envious of someone else’s success? Tell God you are sorry and say a prayer for that person.

This is an excerpt from The Work of Our Hands. (Amazon affiliate link)