Have you ever thought that a failure might be something profitable to you? Failure, we know, is common to everyone.  No one but a perfect person could live their life without sinning. Adam was created perfect and lived without failure until choosing to willfully disobey the LORD. Our Lord Jesus was the only perfect man who ever lived an absolutely perfect life, from beginning to end, being conceived by the Holy Spirit. Since all mankind is descended from father Adam after his disobedience, they have all inherited a sinful nature which is subject to imperfection and failure.

Failure, while not something we desire to do, does not have to be a negative experience. Failure always presents us with a choice that we have to make. If the choice is to consider it negatively, becoming discouraged and wanting to give up, then we are the losers. But, if we choose to look at a failure in a positive way, we can use the knowledge gained through it as a steppingstone to success.  Then, when we encounter a similar situation we can more intelligently work our way through the problem with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 24:16 offers us encouraging advice. “…for though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again.” A positive lesson can be learned each time we fall or fail. The point is not to give up, but to get up! There is no real failure except in giving up. It has been said, “The only one who never fails is the one who has never tried!” The greatest calamity is not to have failed, but to have failed to try.

Paul encourages us in Galatians 6:9. "Let us not become weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we don't faint." Had Thomas Edison not persevered and been determined, we may still be working by gaslight or at least, it may have been many years before the first electric light was seen. Edison failed over six thousand times before perfecting the first electric light bulb! On one occasion a young journalist challenged Edison saying to him, "Mr. Edison, why do you keep trying to make light by using electricity when you have failed so many times? Don't you know that gaslights are with us to stay?" To this Edison replied, "Young man, don't you realize that I have not failed but have successfully discovered six thousand ways that won't work!"  Now, that is an example of determined perseverance and using failure, successfully!

Abraham Lincoln is another great example of perseverance. A list of the failures along with a few successes is:

• 1831 - Lost his job

• 1832 - Defeated in his run for Illinois State Legislature

• 1833 - Failed in business

• 1834 - Elected to Illinois State Legislature (success)

• 1835 - Sweetheart died

• 1836 - Had nervous breakdown

• 1838 - Defeated in his run for Illinois House Speaker

• 1843 - Defeated in his run for nomination for U.S. Congress

• 1846 - Elected to Congress (success)

• 1848 - Lost re-nomination

• 1849 - Rejected for land officer position

• 1854 - Defeated in run for U.S. Senate

• 1856 - Defeated in run for nomination for Vice President

• 1858 - Again defeated in run for U.S. Senate

• 1860 - Elected President (success)

Now if these men persevered for the things they thought important in this world, how much more should we persevere for our quest of the “high calling” in Christ Jesus which ends in eternity and will not pass away. The Apostle Paul had more to say on this point. “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:13-14).  When Paul said “forgetting the things that are behind,” he wasn’t counting his past experiences as a waste of time, but he wasn’t letting any of those things become an anchor of discouragement. No doubt he learned many things from his past that he could now apply to his determination to reach his goal and win the prize set before him.

May we be as determined and so persevere day by day, relying upon the promises of God’s Word to keep us strong in our journey. May we truly take to heart the same assurance that Paul had when he said, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). And again in Romans 8:37-39, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am certain that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

E. Weeks ©CDMI