Failing Forward
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
I want to invite you to think about the “F” word…
it’s taboo in most families
it’s forbidden in most fields of endeavor and enterprise
it’s certainly is not to be found in religious circles
Right?
Failure
As a little boy growing up in the inner city of New York, I was told that if I ever encountered a dog that there was one of two options:
The first was to stand and face it. (the risk was to be defined by the f-word)
The second thing to do was to turn and run. (the risk was to never know what could have been)
A.) On December 18 I shared a message entitled, Focusing Forward, that basically looked at the matter of “Asking Questions & Waiting For Answers”. Well today my title is Failing Forward. You may be familiar with this term popularized by a book written by former preacher and leadership expert, John Maxwell. The full title of his book is Failing Forward: How to Make the Most of Your Mistakes.
B.) One of Maxwell’s points in his book is that our failures can be the stepping-stones to success. BUT IT DEPENDS HOW WE VIEW OUR FAILURES (i.e. do we accept responsibility for our failures or do we seek to blame others) AND HOW WE RESPOND TO THEM (i.e. do we become angry, bitter, and jealous, or do we learn from them, grow, and get wiser and better).
B.) One of Maxwell’s points in his book is that our failures can be the stepping-stones to success. BUT IT DEPENDS HOW WE VIEW OUR FAILURES (i.e. do we accept responsibility for our failures or do we seek to blame others) AND HOW WE RESPOND TO THEM (i.e. do we become angry, bitter, and jealous, or do we learn from them, grow, and get wiser and better).
The fear of failure affects so many of us. So deep is this fear that it has the capacity to keep us from saying yes the adventures into which God invites us.
Statistics in psychology teach us that we are not alone in this practice of avoidance. Most of us experience a fear of failure. The fear of failure is our culture’s unforgivable sin. Statistics in Forbes Magazine reveal that 41% of millennials biggest fear of being an entrepreneur is failure. Psychology today discusses the fear of failure a “childhood epidemic”, in that many children won’t engage in an activity in which they might fail. They remain in the tasks that they know they can do well, where failure will not strike them.
But what if there’s another side of failure that’s different than how the world perceives it? And that’s the place of transformation.
Author and Pastor J.R. Briggs says it this way, “Failure will define us, refine us, or redefine us. But it will never leave us the same.”
And so, what makes the difference? How can our failures not be seen as negatives, but the thing that God’s uses to advance God’s kingdom? Jesus offers us a third way of responding to failure. Rather than just freezing or running from failure, Jesus offers it as a brand new opportunity to fail forward into the next step of the journey that God has for us. Jesus redraws failure in our lives!
As we look to the lives of the disciples of Jesus we see a plethora of examples of failures. The disciples of Jesus are the ones who “didn’t make the cut”, and when they start following Jesus they fail on multiple occasions. The disciple Peter is often understood as a failure. He’s the one who denied Jesus three times! His story even begins with a failure.
In we read a story of Peter’s failure. After fishing all night, Peter and his buddies return home nearly empty handed. It was a failure of a fishing trip. But Jesus instructs Peter to go back out on the water and fish again. And this time, this time their nets are full of fish! And when Peter saw the nets full of fish he exclaimed, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (). To which Jesus responded, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” ()
Failure is not a thing to be forbidden, but rather perceived as a thing from which we can learn and grow.
Define For Us
You know that you have ventured into the wrong locale when you allow a failure to shift from being a verb (I failed) to a noun (I am a failure).
You know that you have ventured into the wrong locale when you allow a failure to shift from being a verb (I failed) to a noun (I am a failure).
In 1991 the University of Arizona created a 21 million dollar failure, otherwise known as the Biosphere 2. 8 scientists, along with plant life and animal life, lived in this biosphere to experiment with the possibility of life on another planet. It was a giant failure but what they did learn was something significant about the trees.
The scientists could not understand why all of the trees in Biosphere 2 were falling over. After all, the conditions were perfect. So why, then, did the trees fall? They discovered that trees need exposure to stress in order to grow deep roots. Stress + Trauma + Wind is what causes trees roots to sink deeper and thus grow taller. This is the promise of our journey with Jesus. We need stress in order to grow, to transform, to become strong. Now, God does not bring the trauma in our lives, but God does use it to transform us. Failure leads to persistence.
Refine us
Redefine For Us
Jesus takes our failures as an opportunity to strengthen our faith, to teach us that this failure is not the end of the road. What Jesus ultimate teaches us about failure is that it is actually the path of success. In the Sermon on the Mount we are taught that the way to success is not at all the way the world understands it. Instead, success is found in the poor in spirit, success is in the meek, broken-hearted, peace-makers. In we catch yet another example of success according to Jesus when he says to his disciples, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” According to Jesus success looks very different than the way the world understands it.
Refine Us.
- And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It [is] my people: and they shall say, The LORD [is] my God.
Conclusion:
What failure or fear of failure keeps you stuck? What would happen if you allowed Jesus to redraw your failure?
