Failure - It's Just a Word

I'm adding to the earlier piece about failure, because I "failed" to make clear a critical point: namely, the word "failure" is just that, a word, just like chair or warm, without any clear content.

But we use the word specifically when we conceive of ourselves, our efforts, as failures.

Or when we label someone "a failure."

How do we know?

The point of our faith: only God knows the difference between good and evil, between failure and success.

Our task: render up to God the data of our lives, just as they are. Only God knows for sure, and in the end, God is at work in all things for good.

None of us are what we shall be in Christ. But until that time, we press on, as Paul did, to the upward calling, forgetting what lies behind.

Roaring Success!

“I’m a failure!” I’ve heard it ten thousand times, and I’ve said it myself!

How easily we translate the experience of failure into a sweeping assessment of our character – “I’m a failure!”

YOU are not a failure.

You go back to the drawing board. You retreat and try another pathway. You learn and grow.

Anyone alive at 30 is already a roaring success, having weathered hundreds of storms, come through conflicts and difficulties, and overcome obstacles.

We get up in the morning, and we have all that’s needed to succeed. We have Christ in our hearts, Scripture beside us, the love of others and the hope of heaven.

At the end of the day, we come home and wipe our brow: “I made it. That means I’m a success. What I did well today, hip, hip, hooray, and thanks be to God. What needs redoing, I’ll try again tomorrow. There’s always a way through, around, above or beneath, and God is at work in all things for good.”

Whatever comes your way, you face it.
Whatever needs to be done, you do it.
However long it takes, you finish it.

You’re a roaring success!