Shape

There are many things in this life that shape you.

Experiences.

Education.

Relationships.

Friendships. (Yes, those are different.)

Your religion. Everyone has a set of beliefs they live by.

Food. (LOL, but seriously—it shapes both who you are and your body.)

Your environment.

All of these things influence the person you become.

But what shapes you the most is what you believe about yourself.

Personal failures often shape that belief more than anything else.

Guilt creeps in and begins whispering lies.

It tells us we are less valuable because of what we have done.

It tells us we are damaged goods.

It tells us we have wasted too much time, made too many mistakes, and crossed too many lines.

Before long, we find ourselves discouraged, defeated, and convinced that because we haven’t lived up to our potential—or because we haven’t lived better for Jesus—we have somehow entered a place where God could never use us again.

But that is rarely true.

The Bible is filled with people whose failures could have become their identity if they had allowed them to.

Take Noah for example.

When we think of Noah, we think of faith.

We think of obedience.

We think of the ark.

We think of a man who stood alone while the world around him rejected God.

God told Noah to build an ark, and Noah did exactly what God asked him to do. He endured ridicule, trusted God, entered the ark, and survived the judgment that came upon a sinful world.

Yet the final chapter of Noah’s life is not a story of victory.

It is a story of failure.

After the flood, Noah planted a vineyard, made wine, became drunk, and dishonored himself.

The hero of the flood stumbled.

The man who built the ark fell.

The man who obeyed God failed.

And that’s important because Noah’s failure did not erase Noah’s faith.

God did not go back and rewrite Noah’s story.

God did not remove Noah from the list of people He used.

God did not decide that Noah’s usefulness had ended because of one terrible decision.

Noah sinned.

But Noah’s sin was not the thing that ultimately defined him.

And neither are yours.