JANUARY 1

Failing Forward

Suddenly Jesus appeared among them and said, “Peace to you!”

JOHN 20:19 TPT

The first thing Jesus said to the disciples when he appeared before them after his resurrection was, “Peace to you!” He could have chastised them for their failure to be true to him. He could have expressed his disappointment in their lack of faithfulness. But he didn’t.

Fear of failure can often keep you from success. However, failing forward brings us one step closer to success. God doesn’t test us to find out something he already knows; he tests us to let us know ourselves so we can grow into maturity. If you hope to succeed, learn everything you can from your failures. God sees failure as preparation for success. Some things we can only discover by our failures.

Sara Blakely is the founder of Spanx, a women’s garment company with sales of more than $400 million annually. She said her father taught her the greatest lesson in life: “Growing up, my dad used to encourage my brother and me to fail, and he would ask us at the dinner table what we had failed at that week. If we didn’t have something to tell him, he would actually be disappointed. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was just redefining failure for me. Failure became about not trying, not the outcome…That was a real gift he had given me.”1

Ask God to give you the courage to pursue something you have in your heart and embrace the process, even if it means risk of failure.

JANUARY 2

One Tough Woman

She said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”

JUDGES 4:9 NKJV

Deborah was one of the few women judges in the land of Israel. She had just won a major battle against the enemies of Israel and a general named Sisera. His army had been soundly defeated by Israel. At first, when she tried to recruit a warrior named Barak, he did not accept Deborah’s invitation to the fight. As a result, she prophesied that a woman would be used to deliver the general into the hands of Israel. He later relented and joined her in battle.

A gentile couple named Heber and Jael were not known to have an alliance to either Israel or their enemy but had some form of relationship with the general, Sisera, who was now a fugitive. He thought he had loyalty from the couple. Unfortunately for him, Jael was sympathetic to the people of Israel, who had lost twenty thousand lives at Sisera’s hand. When Sisera came to her tent and asked to hide, she invited him in and hid him under a rug. She gave him something to drink, and he fell asleep. She then proceeded to take a tent peg and drive it through his temple; he immediately died.

In her song of triumph, Deborah honored Jael for acting on behalf of Israel. It’s one of the few places in Scripture where a woman is the subject of a prophecy related to battle.

Father, give me the courage to fight the battles that come my way.

JANUARY 3

Your Positioning

Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips.

PROVERBS 27:2 NET

What is your “position” among your peers?

I told my wife one time, “God obviously plays favorites. He gave you a level of beauty unlike any woman I have ever known! You are gorgeous!” (She liked that.)

During our lifetime, we develop a personal “brand.” Just like Cadillac is a luxury car brand and Walmart is known for low prices, you and I are known for certain characteristics among friends, family, and associates.

Perhaps you, too, are known for your physical beauty. Or perhaps there are other qualities that represent you, like generosity or being a faithful friend. Or you could have a not-so-good brand as a person who is moody, controlling, or critical of others.

King David had a brand. He committed adultery and murder, and he failed many times in his family life. Yet, God later described David as a “man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22 NIV). Although David did make many mistakes, his heart became soft toward God, and God honored that despite any perfections David might have had.

Father, make me a woman of integrity, love, and faithfulness. Bless me with the heart of a servant to others.

JANUARY 4

Ten Flights of Stairs

Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvelous mercies? To surrender yourselves to God to be his sacred, living sacrifices.

ROMANS 12:1 TPT

One Sunday in Copenhagen, Corrie ten Boom, who was eighty at the time, had spoken from Romans 12:1–2, urging listeners to present their bodies as living sacrifices to Christ. Two young nurses invited Corrie to their apartment for lunch, not thinking that they were inviting an eighty-year-old woman to scale ten flights of stairs because there was no elevator. (Perhaps they should have thought twice about putting that kind of burden on Corrie!) That seemed to be a monumental task at her age.

When Corrie discovered this was the situation, she complained to the Lord. Then the Lord whispered to Corrie that a special blessing awaited her on the tenth floor, so she bravely tackled ten flights of stairs, having to stop and rest along the way. The parents of one of the girls were in attendance, and neither were Christians, but they were eager to hear about the gospel. After hearing Corrie’s testimony, they both invited Jesus into their lives. Returning down the steps, Corrie said to the Lord, “Thank you, Lord, for making me walk up all the steps. And next time, Lord, help me listen to my own sermon about being willing to go anywhere you tell me to go—even up ten flights of stairs.”2

Father, help me be available at all times to share your love with others.

JANUARY 5

The Purpose of the Desert

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.”

HOSEA 2:14 NIV

If you have an important message to convey to someone, what is the best means of getting the message through? Have you ever tried to talk with someone who was so busy you could not get them to hear you? God has his way of taking us aside to get our undivided attention. For Paul, it was Arabia for three years; for Moses, it was forty years in the desert; for Joseph, it was thirteen years in Egypt; for David, it was many years of fleeing from King Saul.

Sometimes God must take us into the desert wilderness in order to speak to us. Fear not the desert, for it is where you will hear God’s voice like never before. It is where you become his bride. It is where you will have the idols of your life removed. Someone once said, “God uses enlarged trials to produce enlarged saints so he can put them in enlarged places!”

“He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me” (2 Samuel 22:20).

Father, help me spend time with you every day to know you better.

JANUARY 6

Receiving Only from God

To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven.”

JOHN 3:27 NIV

God never gave you that property,” said my friend, who had entered my life at a time of great turmoil. These were hard words at the time. My business, my personal finances, my marriage all seemed to be drying up at the same time. My friend had made an observation about some land we had purchased years before. His point was that I had acquired something that God had never given me. It was not a by-product of God’s blessing; it was a source of sweat and toil born out of the wrong motives of the heart.

When John’s disciples came to him and asked if he was the Messiah, he responded that he was not and that one could only receive what God had given him. He was a forerunner to the Messiah, and he was fulfilling a call God had given him. When we seek to acquire anything that God has not given us, he will remove that which we are not supposed to have.

David understood this principle when he said, “Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand” (1 Chronicles 29:14).

Father, help me to receive only what you have for me out of obedience and abiding in you.

JANUARY 7

Saved from Death’s Door

“If you embrace the truth, it will release true freedom into your...