Thought For Today: “Rethinking Failure”
Theodore Roosevelt said, “Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory or defeat.”
Benjamin Franklin said, “Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.”
Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
The Lord says, “When people fall down, don’t they get up again? When they discover they’re on the wrong road, don’t they turn back?” (Jeremiah 8:4)
I think it’s time to take failure out of the darkness of disgrace and guilt and recast it into a new light. When we do it will free us up to do great and mighty things for the Lord!
Ultimately failure is not about loss; rather it’s about learning lessons and moving forward in life. It is the lessons learned from failure that makes us wiser, stronger, and more prepared for the rest of life.
When you stumble and fall, you get back up, and if you take a wrong road, you turn around and go back. Jeremiah 8:4
Dennis Lee is Senior Pastor at Living Waters Fellowship, Mesquite, Nevada. He presently has two books, “From Here to There: A Journey to Spiritual Transformation,” and “Wells of Living Waters,” He also writes a religious column for a local newspaper entitled, “Rediscover the Bible for Life,” along with daily devotionals and thoughts that he posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Living Waters Fellowship’s Website
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
Amen! If we didn’t have failures, we would never learn victory. We will never move forward and mature in our walk with the Lord and accomplish great things for His kingdom remaining stagnant. In the account of Peter in Matthew 14:29-31 stepping out the boat but then shifting his focus from Jesus to the waves of the sea and beginning to go under, which we all catch that part. But the point we don’t want to miss is that Peter was the only one who got out of the boat in the first place. He was willing to take that step of faith to move towards Jesus. In that, even through his temporary failure of looking at his circumstances instead of Jesus when the waves formed around him, he did learn the lesson of looking to Jesus in the moments that followed, and Jesus lifted him up. We need to be willing to step out of the boats in our lives when God is calling us, or we will miss the very lessons we need to learn to move forward in that calling.
Thank you Debbie for your response. Please, take care and God bless