Failure

In an address to a nation divided by the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln underscored the need to persevere in spite of failure. He said, "I am not concerned that you have failed. I am concerned that you arise." The following excerpt, which appeared in an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal, also emphasizes this point:

You've failed many times although you may not remember. You fell the first time you tried to walk, didn't you? You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim. Did you hit the ball the first time you swung the bat? Heavy hitters, the ones who hit the most home runs, also struck out a lot. R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York caught on. English novelist John Cracey got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books. Babe Ruth struck out 1330 times, but he also hit 714 home runs. Don't worry about failure. Worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try.

In a performance-oriented culture such as ours, failure belts us like a punch in the stomach. Repeated failure often results in a knockout blow, and many people give up altogether. As Comedian W. C. Fields once quipped, "If at first you don't succeed, then quit. There's no use in being a fool about it."

The problem is that a life with little failure is a life of little risk. This type of life may appear to offer safety and security, but it actually leads to guilt, boredom, further apathy and even lower feelings of self-esteem. God designed and commissioned us to be productive-many times that demands faith and risk.

by Dennis and Barbara Rainey