What's Worth It? Week 7: Failing

On the list of things worth pursuing in life, you probably wouldn't list Failure. Yet failing is a product of trying -- an aspect of risk -- and since no one ever achieves perfection, failing to some degree is inevitable.

This can be difficult, because perfection is in high demand these days. Employers look for the perfect job candidate. Singles look for “the One” person they are meant to be with.

And consumers of popular movies and television shows complain when their favorite shows don’t go the way they want (e.g. Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc).

The pressure to get things right can be intimidating, and can lead us to delay (or call off) necessary choices. Should we act now, or get more input first? Should we apply for that job now, or skip it because we don’t meet ALL the qualifications? Should we risk pursuing someone, and maybe suffer a breakup or a divorce? There’s no right answer; each one of these is a question of wisdom, and none of us has enough of it to answer.

The writer of Ecclesiastes faced the same dilemma. In Ecclesiastes 7:1-24, we see him draw some conclusions, but by v.23 even he realizes that the wisdom he sought was, ultimately, beyond him. And in in v.20 he recognizes that there’s no one who’s perfect in all they do.

In the New Testament, Paul recognized this as well. 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 talks about how knowledge was deficient as a guiding principle when compared to love. As he stated, they saw things imperfectly, “as through a glass, darkly” (KJV), but when “the time of perfection comes,” (NIV), we would see everything “with perfect clarity.” (NIV)

If I understand that right, Paul knew very well that he didn’t have all the answers, yet he didn’t let that delay him or stop him from doing what he thought was right.

So then, what about us? Should lack of knowledge or lack of wisdom prevent us from taking action? Paul’s ministry began long before he wrote I Corinthians, and – in a way – we have the Bible now because he took action before he had the best wisdom or the best ministry know-how.

Acting now – and accepting the very real risk of failure – seems to be the Michael Jordan path to success. As Jordan explained,

“I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”Source

Again, the writer of Ecclesiastes sees this as the best way. Ecclesiastes 11:1-6 advises that – since you can’t know everything – you’re better off acting than waiting for better conditions. But “just as you cannot understand the path of wind,” there’s really no telling how things will turn out.

Failure and setbacks are real, and like suffering they definitely are is not enjoyable. But just as earlier, when we talked about how suffering for a good cause is a path to happiness, failure can provide some great lessons. Here, six entrepreneurs shared what they learned from their failures. [Source]

And how you deal with failure shows what kind of person you are.

“Successful bright people rarely experience failure, and so they don’t learn how to learn from that failure …They, instead, commit the fundamental attribution error, which is if something good happens, it’s because I’m a genius. If something bad happens, it’s because someone’s an idiot or I didn’t get the resources or the market moved.” – Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of Google’s human resources.

“Then who does the best at Google? According to Bock, it’s the people who ‘argue like hell’ and be ‘zealots about their point of view,’ but when a new fact emerges, they’ll be able to admit that the situation has changed–and they’re not right.” [Source]

Success in life – however we measure it in accordance with your values – comes only if we are willing to admit we don’t have all the answers, take risks, fail, and grow from the experience. The failures may be bitter, but as Proverbs 27:7 says, “A person who is full refuses honey, but even bitter food tastes sweet to the hungry.”

Paul took risks. By the time of 2 Corinthians 11:25, he’d been shipwrecked three times. (You’d think he would learn to take the long way around the Mediterranean Sea.) But if nothing else, it taught him a few things about shipwrecks (1 Timothy 18-19).

Samson (Judges 13-16) took risks, too – some of them, foolishly. His life decisions and failures brought embarrassment and humiliation, but in the end he was able to fulfill his purpose.

If we remember that failure – like suffering – does not correlate with godliness, then we can accept it as a learning experience rather than a punishment. It is impossible to know – in a single moment – if something is a “good” or “bad” experience.

So let us, in the spirit of Proverbs 3:5-6, trust in the Lord with all our hearts, leaning not on our own understanding, and in all our ways submit to him, trusting he will make our paths straight. If we can do that, then we won’t be afraid to take risks, fail, and keep growing for as long as we live.

Discussion Questions:

1. What failures have you had that ended up being for your benefit? Ever see a past relationship from high school and think “I’m so glad that didn’t work out”?
2. Is failure always “bad/negative” and success always “good/positive”?
3. What’s the difference between failure and success?
4. Is there anything you’ve wanted to do but have been do afraid of failure to start?