REDEEMING FAILURE

REDEEMING FAILURE

A man walks into the psychiatrist’s office and says to the psychiatrist, “Doctor I think I am suffering from an inferiority complex.” So the psychiatrist takes him through a whole battery of testing. The next week the doctor gives the troubled man the results.” I have both good news and bad news for you. The good news is that you do not suffer from an inferiority complex”, said the psychiatrist. “The bad news is that truly you are inferior.”

All of us have experienced failure at some point or the other. The fact is that all of us fail in our lives and all of us have got ways of dealing with it. Some of us live by the motto "if at first you don't succeed destroy all evidence that you tried." Failure-we hide, deny, fear, ignore, take it personally or hate it. We do everything but accept it but that doesn’t change the fact that we fail.

We can be thankful that Scripture deals openly with failure. The defects of the saints are not edited out. The dark sides of people who made a difference in their generation are there for all to see: King David’s adultery and murderous scheming, Elijah’s loss of nerve, Jonah’s vindictive spirit. In fact the lives of these people provide us with a clue about how God deals with failure. Time and again God took broken, messed up and utter failures and used them for His glory.

It is also true that not all failures that we see in the Bible had glorious endings. While people such as Moses, Abraham, David, Jonah and Simon Peter seem to have turned their failures into great transforming moments, others like Lot, Ahab, and Judas Iscariot seem never to have recovered. What was the difference? There are three principles that we can draw, as we look at the lives of those who failed and yet by God’s grace have come out of it triumphantly.

Failure does not diminish God’s love.

Failure, first and foremost, affects our sense of worth. We live in a success driven world, where anything less than success is worthless. It is not surprising that our society which advocates this kind of philosophy, witnesses a generation that is willing to end its life at the remotest possibility of failure. Every year when school / college results are declared, the newspaper is full of stories of students who commit suicide because they could not do well in their exams. In a society that worships success, failure is often met with repugnance. No one wants to associate with a failure.

How different is the God we encounter in the Bible. Paul wrote about God’s love in Romans 5:18 saying “…yet while we were sinners Christ died for us.” You see, God’s love for us is not based on our performance. There is nothing that we can do to make God love us more and there is nothing that we can do to make God love us less. Paul was so sure of God’s unfailing love that in Romans 8:38-39, he says “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Translate this in our every day life and we could read this as “ Neither failure nor poor church attendance, nor inadequate Bible reading and prayer, nor betrayal, denial doubt, insecurity, guilt, weakness, nor even losing our temper can separate us from the love of God.” He just keeps loving us.

It is true that when we sin, we break God’s heart but that never makes God’s heart grow cold towards us. When Adam and Eve sinned against God they were banished from the Garden of Eden but not abandoned by God. Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son highlight this truth that no one, no matter how insignificant or small or useless they may be, is written off in God’s economy. Each of these parables ends with Jesus telling His disciples that there will be great rejoicing over one sinner who repents. Henri Nouwen once said “God rejoices. Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end, nor because thousands of people have been converted and are now praising Him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of His children who was lost has been found.”

Isn’t it comforting to know that our Heavenly Father loves us just as we are? Though we have failed Him and disappointed Him, when we turn to Him in repentance we encounter grace upon grace. In John 21 we read that after Jesus’ resurrection, He appeared to the disciples and what is fascinating in this passage, is Jesus’ question to Peter. He asked, “Peter do you love me?” I think it should have been Peter asking this question. “Lord, do you love me, after I denied you and deserted you at the time you needed me the most?” But the fact that it is Jesus and not Peter asking this question tells us that Peter was already forgiven and was now given a second chance.

No matter what our failure is, when we turn to God in true repentance we are always given a second chance. In Christ we are a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come.

Failure is not Final

William J. Gaither in one of his best known hymns wrote. “Something beautiful, something good. All my confusion He understood. All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife, but He made something beautiful of my life.” God in His sovereignty is able to take even our failures and transform them into something good. Paul in Romans 8:28 says “…in all things God works for the good of those who love him and have been called according to his purpose.” Notice he says ‘all things’ which means even our failures and our blunders can be used for the good as we surrender them to God. In God’s economy failure is not final.

Consider Moses, who encountered failure when he impulsively killed an Egyptian. Though Moses understood his calling to deliver the people of Israel [Acts 7:25], he misunderstood God’s way of doing things. After killing the Egyptian, Moses ran away. One would think that’s the end of the story, but no; God was still at work. The next forty years in the wilderness served as a training ground for preparing Moses for the task that lay ahead. D.L. Moody once said of Moses, “he spent the first 40 years thinking he was a somebody, the next 40 years learning he was a nobody then the last 40 years discovering what God can do with a nobody.”

When we go through failures, we may think it is the end of the road but in God’s providence that may be just the beginning of a great task ahead. As long as we live in this fallen world we will go through failures. The best way to deal with failure is, not to dwell on our past mistakes, but to trust in God and move ahead. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13 “…Forgetting what lies behind and straining towards what is ahead”. John Chrysostom the early church father once said “The danger is not that we should fall…but that we should remain on the ground.”

The Bible tells us in I Corinthians 1:27 “God chose what is foolish…to shame the wise; God chose what is weak…to shame the strong”. Our failure rather than being an obstruction between us and God may be the very thing that pushes us towards Him, for our failure forces us to face the fact that we are not self-sufficient. The only way we can live a victorious life is when we trust in His grace and not in our strength.

Don’t let failure overwhelm you, but see the bigger picture through God’s perspective. And you will realize that failure is, but a stepping stone for success. Winston Churchill has rightly said “Success is never final; failure is never fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.

Failure can be transformed.

Once upon a time there was a king who had a beautiful diamond in his possession. Once a year he would put that diamond on display for the general public to come and see. Men and women from all over the place would flock to see this rare beauty. As time approached for the diamond to be displayed, the king ordered that it be polished and put in its special case. Unfortunately the jeweller, who handled the diamond, was careless and as a result the diamond developed a big scar as it was being polished. This scar completely marred the beauty of the diamond.

The king was very upset that his prized possession was ruined. He sent word throughout the land that if there was any one who could fix the scar, he would be given a big reward. Many jewellers and diamond experts came and examined the diamond but there was nothing they could do to erase the scar from it. Finally, an old man walked into the king’s court and said that he would be able to fix the problem but for that he would have to take the diamond and would return it only after a week. The king was reluctant but having no other option he gave the diamond to the old man.

The old man took the diamond and returned after a week. He then presented the diamond to the king, and the king noticed that the old man had carved a beautiful rose on the diamond, using the scar as the stem of the rose. This made the diamond look even more beautiful than it was previously. The very scar that once blemished the good look of the diamond now, as the stem of the rose, enhanced its beauty. God, in his sovereignty, is able to use the very scars of failures and transform them into something beautiful. Failure can be transformed — look at people like Moses, David, Paul and Peter and you will see how God worked in and through flawed human beings. And the good news is He still does. John Newton the slave trader whom God transformed into a hymn writer. Charles Colson, who served President Richard Nixon and was, put into prison for his involvement in the Watergate scandal, encountered Jesus Christ while in prison and his life took a complete turn. Today, he leads an international ministry called the Prison fellowship which reaches out to prison inmates with the love of Christ.

God said through the prophet Isaiah “…though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.” [Isa. 1:18] Our failure, when surrendered before God is but a tool in His hand to shape us and mould us for His glory.

A New Vision

In Matthew 25: 14-30, Jesus told a parable of a man who goes on journey and as he leaves he entrusts his property to his servants. To the first, he gives five talents, to the second, he gives two talents and to the third, he gives one talent, to each according to his ability. After a long time when their master returns he finds that the first and the second servant had doubled what had been given to them where as the third servant had hidden his talent and still had only one. The master rewards the first two, for their work while the third one is punished for his laziness; for not putting to good use what was given to him. Notice, the master does not commend the first two because they were successful in work nor does he rebuke the third servant because he had failed rather the point that Jesus was making through this parable was that at the end of the day what really matters is how faithful we are, to what we have been entrusted with, and not whether we succeed or fail.

When Charleston Heston was training to drive the chariot for Ben-hur, he said to Cecil B. Demill, the director of the movie, “I can barely stay on this thing. I can’t win the race” De Mille replied, “Your job is to stay on it. It’s my job to make sure you win”. That is what God says to us— that we need to be faithful to what He has entrusted us with, and God will take us to the finish line and declare victory. Paul wrote in Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” As long as we live on, this side of eternity we will continue to experience failures, but we need to move ahead trusting in God’s promises and provisions, knowing that His grace is all sufficient for our lives.

- Rev. Paras Tayade