How To Deal With Failure

Everyone who reads this article is probably a failure...in one way or another. At one time or another, we were ready to call it quits. We "lost our cool." Many people have become fed up with life, and they are ready to call it quits. They are so discouraged, they don't want to go on. Failure has always plagued us. We all have our troubles.

We have failed to live and let live. We have failed to live and help live. The insanity of our wars, and of our hostilities causes us to wonder whether mankind will ever learn. H. G. Wells one time said, "What would a world of human beings gone sane, be like?" And then he went on to comment that over 3/4 of the world's income goes to paying for past and future wars. What a failure, civilization has been.

And so here we are. Society seems to be pointing the finger at us and saying, "That person is a failure!" And we are left out, we are put out, we are counted out, and we become down, and out! Of course, there is another side to the coin. Without failure, we would hardly know the joy of success. Our Christian faith keeps reminding us: "you can't have the crown without going through the cross!"

The Christian Church started with failure, with people who had sinned, with people who knew that they were not good enough. Just look at the Bible. Here is a record of one failure after another. The failure of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The failure of Abraham in Egypt, who talked glibly out of both sides of his mouth, regarding whether the woman he was with was his sister or his wife. Then there was Moses' failure to get the Children of Israel out of Egypt, trying first one thing and then another. Then their failure to become an obedient people, and Moses slams the Ten Commandments to the ground. We see the failure of King David, the man who could do no evil, and yet who did evil, with another man's wife. We see the failure of Israel to trust in God rather than in pagan idolatries.

Is not the Bible the record of how God deals with our failures? Even the life of Jesus Christ became a "failure". He failed to win the world, to convince them, to change them. He who was the Messiah was crucified upon a common, ordinary cross. His friends deserted him. The treasurer of his own organization betrayed him. They all left.

And what did God do with this great "X" mark upon a hill? He did not cancel Christ, He canceled sin. The cross became the central symbol of the Christian Church.

And so your neighbors may forget you; your boss may never re‑instate you, the friends you thought you had, may never associate with you, but God will not forsake you. If you have sinned, he will cleanse you. If you have broken your promise, He will not break His.

At the foot of the cross, we are all failures in a way. We have all sinned and come short of the mark. But God takes failure and redeems it. God takes death and resurrects it. That's a "hallelujah" in my book.