My wife and I spent some years as missionaries in Brazil. Our first two years felt fruitless and futile. More often than not I went home frustrated. So we asked God for another plan. We prayed and reread the Epistles, especially focused on Galatians. It occurred to me I was preaching a limited grace. When I compared our gospel message with Paul’s, I saw a difference. His was high-octane good news. Mine was soured legalism. We focused on the gospel, proclaiming forgiveness of sins and resurrection from the dead. We baptized forty people in twelve months! God wasn’t finished with us. We just needed to put the past in the past and God’s plan in place.
Don’t waste your failures by failing to learn from them. Rise up! God hasn’t forgotten you. Keep your head up. You never know what good awaits you.
From Glory Days
