Have you ever felt like a failure? I would imagine that most of us have had victory snatched out of our hands. During the1978 firemen’s strike in England, the British army took over emergency firefighting. They were called out by an elderly lady in South London to retrieve her cat. They arrived with impressive haste, very cleverly and carefully rescued the cat, and started to drive away. But the lady was so grateful she invited the squad of heroes in for tea. Driving off later with fond farewells and warm waving of arms, they ran over the cat. (www.bible.org)

But the expert in failure is Vinko Bogatej. He was a ski-jumper from Yugoslavia who, while competing in the 1970 World Ski-Flying Championship, fell off the takeoff ramp and landed on his head. Ever since, the accident has been used to highlight "the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat" on ABC’s "Wide World of Sports." (Thomas Rogers in N. Y. Times, quoted in December 1980, Reader’s Digest)

None of us like to fail. I read about a young pastor who backed a truck up to his office. He unloaded the contexts of his office, books, sermons, everything. He took them to the city dump and threw them all out. He was so overwhelmed by failure that he was determined to never again return to ministry. He never did. (Liberating Ministry From The Success Syndrome, K Hughes, Tyndale, 1988, p. 9)

Have you ever felt that kind of horrifying failure? I have. I would think that most of us have been there. If so, we are in good company, the disciples were often immense failures. The question is, how do we deal with it?

Jesus had taken Peter, James and John up on the mountain so that they might witness his transfiguration. He left the other nine behind. He came back and found a large crowd and there were some scribes arguing with the disciples. As soon as Jesus appeared the crowd turned to him and he began to ask what was going on? It seems that some of his disciples tried to cast out a demon from a boy and they failed. Can you imagine the frustration and embarrassment of their failure? Jesus cast out demons, why can’t they?

Notice what Jesus’ response was to this news. "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!" Jesus said the problem was unbelief! This admonition was not to the disciples, it was to the crowd. Whenever Jesus uses the term "generation" he refers to crowd around him and not the disciples. The disciples were insufficient for the task, they were in a situation that was beyond their abilities. The crowd was hard of heart. The Pharisees and the scribes were obstinate, intentionally hardheaded. This is why Jesus grieves over them.

The father of the boy explained what was wrong and said "But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!" Jesus was almost amused by the man’s plea. And Jesus said to him, "'If You can!' All things are possible to him who believes." The poor man did not know what to do. "Immediately the boy's father cried out and began saying, ‘I do believe; help my unbelief.’" We can’t make light of this man. He was desperate. He believed in Jesus, but this was his son! Could he turn over the welfare of his son over to Jesus, especially in light of the disciple’s failures? My faith is weak, help me to believe!

This is where many of us are. We believe but we don’t trust God quite enough. The reason often is we are afraid that God will not do what we want. We say we trust God no matter what, but we panic when things don’t go our way. We are of two minds, self induced doubt mingled with our faith.

The self induced doubt is often the result of wanting to be our own boss, to rule our lives even though we know that God is our boss, our Lord. We want control that rightfully belongs to God. We don’t want God telling us what to do, even as believers. This produces such a conflict in our lives that the result is doubt. We doubt God because we don’t really trust him. And not really trusting God is the opposite of faith.

Jesus did cast out the demon. The disciples asked him why they failed and his answer was "This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer." But, even prayer is a matter of faith. In this incident, Matthew records for us some stronger words of Jesus. Mat 17; 20 And He *said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you."

These verses verify that the trouble, even with the disciples, was a matter of faith. In their culture maybe the problem was demons, among other things. In our day it is a problem of all kinds of ungodliness. While it may not be our job to move mountains by faith or even to cast out demons, it is our job to change the world by faith. We do not change the world by gimmicks. We do not change the world by compromise. We do not change the world by turning worship into entertainment. We do not change the world by living as pagans. We change the world when Christians, living authentic Christian lives, confront our fallen culture with the claims of the gospel and call individuals to repentance. But, we must be living our lives in faith.

None of us were saved so that we might go back to our sinful lifestyle. That would be like a pig going back to the mud hole after he has been washed up because the nature of the pig to wallow in the mud. But, now that we have come to faith in Christ, sin is no longer our nature. Paul wrote: Romans 6:1 "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" But even a new nature must be exercised by faith. We live our new lives by faith, not by falling back to our old ways.

The Apostle Paul warned that in the last days difficult times would come. Christians will turn away from Jesus. They will give the appearance of loving God but they continue to live a contradictory life. How are we to find faith and live without doubt in such a world? Lets face it, temptation is everywhere. Our faith is constantly assaulted by our culture. How can we escape failure?

Jesus said that the way for us to face life’s failures is by prayer. We learn faith in prayer. We give our burdens to God in prayer. God changes us and strengthens us in prayer. We simply don’t spend enough time in prayer.

Did you know that your church meets every week for prayer? Every Wednesday night, we meet for prayer. At 6: 45 P M everyone meets, adults, youth, and children for a time of intercessory prayer. At 7: 15 P M, the children and the youth go to their programs and the rest of us have a time of in depth prayer. I challenge you to come and pray as a church that God will make us to be men and women of faith. The difference between success and failure, between faith and unbelief is often a matter of prayer.

What happens when we gather to pray? We realize that matters of faith do not rest in ourselves but in God. These are God-given gifts to us. In prayer we are placing our faith, even if it is small, in God and we are trusting him. We learn that all spiritual power lies with God and not in ourselves. Prayer is our faith directed to God, it becomes the empty hands to receive God’s answer and strength and faith.

When failure comes in your life, what will you do? Will you fret and feel useless? Will you give up? Do that and you really will be a failure. When we fail, turn to God in prayer. Let God control us, instruct us and strengthen us. When God is in control, things may not go as we want, but they can never fail because God cannot fail.