A Little Encouragement For Those Who Are Struggling With Failure

  • Thread starter Thread starter ShowersofRoses
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

ShowersofRoses

Guest
I mentioned this to another poster today, but I’ve been meaning to make a thread about it, so here goes.

I just wanted to give some encouragement to those who are struggling with heavy burdens. I’ve been struggling a lot lately, and I received some good advice.

Perhaps you’ve heard people say, “God won’t give you more than you can bear.” I heard this many, many times before coming home to the Church.

Does that saying ever make you feel inadequate, like you are just not spiritual enough, or doing enough for God, because you feel you do have impossible burdens to carry? How can you keep carrying such a heavy load? Doesn’t God care about the trials you’re going through?? He says to pick up your cross and follow Him…but you keep falling and failing over and over. There must be something wrong with you, right? How can God love a sinner like you?

When talking about this in Confession, and feeling so inadequate about it, the priest made a very good point. It’s something I’ve heard many times but for some reason it really clicked.

Jesus also had to carry His heavy Cross…and He fell three times while carrying it. He was broken and bleeding, and finally He had to have help from Simon of Cyrene to carry that heavy Cross.

So, if Jesus, our Lord and Perfect Savior, fell while carrying His Cross, how can we expect perfection from ourselves while carrying our crosses?

He is our example. He fell while carrying the Cross to show us how to get back up while we carry our heavy loads. He shows us how to keep trusting in God and persevering to the end, no matter how tough it gets.

The saying “God won’t give us more than we can bear” just isn’t accurate. We are constantly given more than any human can bear…some people have to go through horrific suffering. But God promises to bear us up through it: “and He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 1 Cor 12:9

Don’t be so harsh with yourself. Jesus loves you no matter how many times you fail and mess up. Keep getting back up, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. You might need your own Simon, too. Let’s all be quick to reach out a hand to our brothers and sisters…I know I need all the help I can get. Please pray for me.

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up.” 1 Thess 5:11

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” Matt 11:28-30
 
The Apostle Peter, first among the Disciples and the Vicar of Christ, denied his Lord 3 times and Jesus still loved him and entrusted the Church to him 🙂
 
Last edited:
Yes, excellent reminder. Saints Peter and Paul are also such good examples when we are feeling discouraged. I just had never applied Jesus falling under the Cross to me in such a personal way. It really blessed me.
 
I have ALWAYS hated the way “God never gives you more than you can handle” is used. It’s the single most taken out of context scripture EVER. The original passage talks about temptation. God never allws more temptation to sin than we can stand so we can’t say “I sinned because God made me”. The trials of this life, however, are not temptations to sin. Life WILL break us and we will ALL die. Eventually, every single one of us WILL have more than we can physically handle. And that shows the beauty of our faith, i think. Life WILL break us, but it will NOT break our God and He takes it all upon himself in the cross we can finish the race and hold to our faith. We will be broken, bruised, trampled, bloodied, and beaten down just as Christ was. And, just like Christ, we will be raised with him! 🙂
 
Delphinus said:
Life WILL break us and we will ALL die. Eventually, every single one of us WILL have more than we can physically handle. And that shows the beauty of our faith, i think. Life WILL break us, but it will NOT break our God and He takes it all upon himself in the cross we can finish the race and hold to our faith. We will be broken, bruised, trampled, bloodied, and beaten down just as Christ was. And, just like Christ, we will be raised with him! 🙂
Click to expand...
Yes, exactly! The way I’ve heard some people in the prosperity gospel churches use that verse, like a whip to keep people in chains, is abhorrent.

But I’ve also had gentle, loving people tell it to me, because they genuinely believed it. Well, yes, in a sense they’re right, because God does give us grace and strength to handle our burdens. But, life gets HARD and it WILL break us. And I could never tell that twisted message to someone who is going through horrific suffering. Life is overwhelming for so many. And yet Christ is victorious!
 
“My son, do not scorn correction from God,
do not resent His rebuke;
for God reproves the one He loves,
as a father checks a well-loved son.” [Proverbs 3:11, 12]

Reparation through suffering

F of all peoples, please receive from all ages the sufferings of the innocent and the contrite, in reparation for the sins of the guilty!

Behold—
the bereaved and the deserted…the hopeless and the despairing…the displaced and the poverty-stricken…the injured and the physically sick…the mentally and the emotionally ill…the retarded and the incapacitated…the frustrated and the afraid…the isolated and the elderly…the addicted, the imprisoned and the persecuted. Behold those young, to old, sinned against by injustice, misunderstanding, abuse and neglect…those whose hearts this world has broken…those crushed by remorse and racked by misery and sin…those with lives empty of purpose—
all persons with suffering within or with suffering imposed from an external source!

Please receive their pain, grief and loneliness, their weariness, anxiety or desperation—in conjunction with the spiritual, mental and physical anguish of Your Son, as reparation for all the sins of humankind.
God, through Your love of Jesus, please bless and welcome the sufferers! Hold them gently in Your arms and comfort them. Heal them, claim them, and fill them with Your life and peace.

Please accept all the undirected suffering of those who do not know God. Receive this suffering in atonement for all offences against You and any person. Allow Your mercy, compassion and power to release humankind from bondage to sin, suffering, and death.

You grant me compassion to desire to bring their pain to Your redeeming grace. Therefore, gather their tears, those fallen and those unshed. Draw them up into yourself through the sun of divine love, to purify them as a rain of mercy to fall upon the parched souls of humankind. Thus, we may grow in Your love and the earth may be filled with life and fruitfulness pleasing to Your divine purposes.

Our God, out of all the cries and moans and tears, hidden or revealed, from earth’s beginning, please hear our prayer. Joined as one with Your Son we all cry out—“My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?” Of those who torment and those who pass by uncaring and unseeing, we say—“Father, forgive them. They know not what they do and fail to do!” With Him we then cry trustingly—“Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit!”

Father, please listen to our prayer, in union with Your beloved Son whom You raised from death to everlasting glory and joy. In Him who bore all humankind’s sins, please receive all suffering, struggle and sorrow that sin has brought upon our race.

Anything separated from God is meaningless, but in God, all becomes renewed and holy. Please accept from Jesus’ hands the suffering of every person throughout time, held within His own redemptive suffering. This that the whole price of atonement is met, and harmony is restored to Creation in the eternal triumph of Your Kingdom. Thank You, God of our redemption!
 
Suffering servant of God

Dear Jesus, as Suffering Servant [Isaiah 52-53] You accepted all human weakness and struggle in atonement for human sin. You obtained redemption for all who choose Your ways.

With You, I accept the gifts and burdens of my humanity for the sake of others’ salvation. While I endure my faults and life’s difficulties, accepting them as opportunities to grow in love and wisdom, I ask that through Your mercy I never actually sin against You or other people.

Suffering Servant of God, united with You, I offer the heartaches, failures and misfortunes of others’ lives and mine. Your life in me is my real self that desires and moves towards goodness and others’ welfare. Where we can only experience grief or depression before traumatic and distressing occurrences, empower us with trust in You.

Fulfil Your promise that “all shall be well” that “all manner of things shall be well.” (Jesus to Julian of Norwich) Please grant me confidence in Your merciful action even when all seems hopeless, so that like You, I will obtain numerous conversions in blessing for my life lived in service of You and others. October 1980

Jesus, even when I feel devastated or despondent, I desire to pray and try to assist others. Help me to accept humbly, without surprise or disappointment that I seem imperfect and unfruitful, and that life seems dark and gloomy.

Let me live Your dream of me regardless. Let me be the treasure You created me to be, for You and for anyone in my life. Please delight Yourself in me and fulfil Your will in my life despite my inadequacies and trials. October 2001

“_A Christian should always remember that the value of his good works is not based on their number and excellence but on the love of God which prompts him to do these thing_s.” (Saint John of the Cross)

“Do not say, “God will consider the number of my gifts.” [Ecclesiasticus 7:9] “Offer to God the sacrifice of never gathering any fruit. If He wills that throughout your whole life, you should feel a repugnance to suffering and humiliation—if He permits that all the flowers of your desires and of your good will should fall to the ground without any fruit appearing, do not worry. At the hour of death He will cause fruits to ripen on the tree of your soul.” (Saint Therese quoted by Celine in ‘Counsels and Reminiscences’)
 
Suffering with Jesus

Heavenly Father, in the extremity of suffering, Jesus remained heroically generous, granting salvation to a repentant sinner and praying forgiveness for His persecutors. In our own sufferings, please inspire us to deepening charity and faith, in following His example.

He showed compassion to His anguished Mother by filling her empty arms with many children and giving her a son in His loved friend John. Through him, He thus named as brothers and sisters, all persons who follow His cross.

Father, please grant us to welcome the cross of love that we bear with Your Son.
Through Him, let us serve in loving joy when we suffer through anyone’s affliction.
We offer all heartache or inconvenience for others’ sake, as prayer for their true good. Accept our sufferings united with His, in reparation for sin, and in prayer for peace, justice and love amongst Your people.

Grant us to be forgiving, merciful, loving and fraternal like Jesus, witnesses to faith and faithfulness in all circumstances, joyful or painful

Clinging to God in the storms

_A priest informed me that at this time in my life (November 2001) I am like an oyster clinging to the rock of God, unable to do much more than this.

If this oyster may still produce a beautiful pearl for God from the irritants embedded in my life and being, then praise God’s goodness in producing something of value and beauty out of my life with its struggles doubts and difficulties.

Equally, the world can only cling to God. The rock may seem hard and barren, the ‘oysters’ of God’s faithful ones may at times appear lifeless and dull, yet this appearance is merely temporal._
 
Last edited:
O Silent God

Our God, we pray to You for others and ourselves, and sometimes it seems, if only for a time, a time of awful pain and loneliness, that no one is listening, that You are not there.

Many have turned away, disappointed and bitter, that You have not answered their urgent prayer, their painful need for self and for others. There is no satisfactory human answer to their challenge, whatever one might say of Your ways, Your time, because their anguish or their anger is the reality they experience.

Dear God, You need no reminder, but my humanness leads me to remind You that we are human in our minds and hearts and bodies. We have little or no actual sense or knowledge of ourselves as spirit.
If You do not touch us as human beings living in a physical world that we acutely experience, then who can blame anyone for losing faith and hope in You. I cannot blame those who do…but I pray for them with all my heart and life.

O silent God let us hear Your voice in the words of others, and let us be Your love spoken to them. Yet may I ask that You also speak directly to their hearts and minds with unmistakeable Love even where we cannot detect the action of Your Spirit in ourselves or in others. Speak to them in their last moments, if not before.

Please be mindful of our needs, and nurture us as we pray and seek Your healing and care. Embrace all who have lost their hope in God and prayer.
 
Apostles, pray for our restoration and faith

Dear Apostles of Jesus, many of us experience crucifixion in our lives and in the lives of dear ones, as you did. Please pray for us, so that if loss and pain engulfs others’ lives or our own, we will continue to pray and witness Christian love and faith.

You were His chosen companions. Your hearts were broken and your lives shattered by the terrible betrayal and death of your great hope Jesus. He had preached love and faith; He had preached the Kingdom to which He claimed all persons are called. Defeated and disgraced with no more honour than the vilest criminal, He was tortured, executed and buried.

Did you fear that His words and acts now meant nothing, as each of you—except John—scattered and hid to avoid a similar fate? Disillusioned and shocked, you wondered if the last few years were a shameful mistake? Were you betrayed by your discipleship to this condemned Man?

Poor men, how could you reconcile the terrible events of this Passover with the Son of God, the Saviour whom you had believed Jesus to be! How could this disgrace, loss, and failure be the end to which He, and possibly yourselves, could be destined!

Peter, you, His appointed one, denied even an acquaintanceship with Him. How great your shock and your disillusionment when the full realisation of your perfidy assailed you!

Only John returned to stand beneath the cross with the grieving women. Beloved John! Shaking with grief and shock, you stood there, gutted by the unbelievable tragedy unfolding before you. Faith and love supported you, yet did you not experience the same terrible emptiness and loss as your fellow apostles and other disciples?

Dear Apostles, throughout the ages, countless individuals experience in some way the crucifixion of a loved one, or of themselves, and the consequent challenge to hope and faith. They may feel emptiness, or loss of zeal. They may lose all trust in the living, merciful God.

Pray for them, for us, that in such periods we may be faithful, regardless of broken heart and anguish of spirit. Pray that we may be restored to hope, to trust, to prayer, to active service of love in the Kingdom. Intercede for such resurrection in us. Implore the Holy Spirit to come and restore our spirits, making us true apostles of Jesus. Pray that we become evangelists, enabling the Spirit to draw others into the Kingdom of God.

Thank you, Apostles of Jesus, whose weaknesses mirror our weakness, and whose restored faith, zeal, and courage, inspire us. Pray for us who are your sisters and brothers throughout the ages. Share your blessings with us. Pray that we shall receive in fullness those precious gifts of His love that He longs for us to share and distribute.

Obtain that we honour and delight our God with all heart and strength. Then, when at last our souls rise to join yours, we shall enjoy eternity at your side, honouring and loving the great Son of God, whom we once betrayed out of our fear and selfishness or in our disillusionment and distress. 1999
 
Regarding holiness

Dear Jesus, please reveal brilliantly to all, that You do not require that individuals need to be regarded as Saints, in order to be Your saints. Assure them that holiness is Your action, not ours!

Let them read the gospels and reflect on what they read, discovering that You were truly human, that you wept, felt pain, joy, and exasperation, “How long do I have to put up with this faithless generation!”) [Mark 9:19]

You became righteously angry [in the Temple]. You were sometimes disappointed, sometimes weary. You who spent so much time teaching and ministering to others, sometimes felt the need to be alone, and the desire to escape a dreadful ordeal (“let this cup pass from me”). [Luke 22:42]

Then in the depths of suffering, You found faith difficult, (“My God, why have You abandoned me?”) [Psalm 22:1] Yet humbly Your cried out “Not my will, Your will be done!” and “Into Your hands I commend my Spirit”.

Why did not the evangelists record Your laughter! How sober of them! However, they do record as Your lyrical delight over little children, (“Blessed are You, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth! You have revealed to little ones, the mysteries of Your Kingdom!” [Matthew 11:25]

Jesus, ask Your people to observe that You lived the ordinary life for about thirty years. If You had not wanted to make such an issue about being vulnerably human, You could have come as a glorious, fully developed human Personage.

Jesus, truly human, truly God, help us to become fully human, fully whole, created as we are in the image of God. (Genesis 1:26)
 
Thank you!!! I feel totally inadequate and like a failure who is falls back into sin over and over. I cried reading your post. Really needed! Thank you!
 
Communion of Saints

Heavenly Family, please intercede powerfully for us when we are demoralised by disappointments and loss of fervour. A history of apparently ‘fruitless’ service and ‘unanswered’ prayer may lead us to discouragement and depression, deepened by remembrance of earlier zeal that seems irretrievable. The gospel way is difficult for anyone worn by years of sorrows and effort.

You also experienced dilemmas and pain of earthly trial. Even one of the dearest Saints of our time, Therese of Lisieux, endured trials of faith. She, along with all you citizens of heaven now experiences the wondrous eternal realities of God.

Pray for our renewal and growth when religious discussion seems tedious, or when intercession begins to feel almost like assiduous ‘blackmail’ instead of request to a loving God.

Help us to escape the trap of requiring God to be a ‘fairy-godmother’ deity! Obtain for us maturity of faith in life’s difficulties and tragedies. Pray that we continue to serve others in prayer and act, trusting that God will provide. Pray that we do justice to the gift of our lives and talents, and God’s will for our lives.
October 25, 2002

Vessel of Heavenly Treasury
Citizens of Heaven, you behold us, your family yet apart from you, with tender yearning. How much would you share with us for self and others, if we were trusting and resolute in living the gospel?
Each of you has treasures of life drawn from the Trinity that you desire to flood to us. You search for souls to carry life to others in the desert of our worldliness, sinfulness, sensuality, cynicism and pain. Therefore, I offer myself in all my abilities and faults! Take me up, cleanse and fill me with love and blessing for others.
Although neither silver nor gold nor fine pottery, I am deep with trust in divine love, open with unadorned simplicity, scoured out by my efforts and failures, and sealed by sacramental grace. In my sinful brokenness, I am glued together by faith that all these circumstances are transcended and transformed by God’s love.
I surrender yearningly to this love, pleading that the Spirit of God achieves God’s desires in me, in flooding your treasure to others and glorifying God. I ask your guardianship and direction for the sake of the coming of the Kingdom. In each instant of my life, each cell, each breath—here I am, Lord and Mary, Saint and Angel each! Please use me, despite my poor performance and limitations. 1983
 
I’m so glad! I was debating posting it, but it really blessed me so I wanted to share.

Hugs for you. :hugs::hugs:
 
I’m so glad you did. I think when lead to shared we should. Typically the Holy Spirit working in us. I’m sure your post will touch many.
 
ShowersofRoses said:
The way I’ve heard some people in the prosperity gospel churches use that verse, like a whip to keep people in chains, is abhorrent.
Click to expand...
I am a convert from a church that didn’t open preach prosperity gospel, but they did covertly encourage it and many people who attended were VERY pro prosperity gospel. It was one of the first things that started to lead me away from them. I still remember the day I fell into the arms of Mother Church. So joyous <3
 
The belief that “God won’t give us more than we can bear” really is accurate. Because he helps us “carry our crosses” too. Without God, it would be way too much. Relying on Him in our struggles makes it “bearable”. We can “bear” a lot of things, and get through them all. But only with His help. God knows our limitations.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top