The Positive Side of Failure
“A quite significant number of strategies must have been tried and tested, and after using each strategy, they stuck and then another, and another, until you become a master…”
It does not matter the extent of your failure or how many times you have failed. What matters most is how you are able to deal with it and what you make of it. C. S Lewis wrote: “Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward towards success.” It’s also amazing to know that this is just a way of making you better at what you do. David fell and failed so badly, impregnating Bathsheba and killing her husband, Uriah.
“One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.” (2 Samuel 11:2-9).
“In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.” (2 Samuel 11:14-15).
One would have thought this is the height of falling in the presence of God, but on the contrary, when Prophet Nathan opened this up to him, David became sober and accepted that he has sinned against God and man. The baby that came from that sinful act died and David mended his way before the Lord. “And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.” (2 Samuel 12:13). Due to the way and manner David handled this situation, he bounced back and God still retained David’s position in His heart. “…he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave their testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart…” (Acts 13:22).
Take Responsibility for your Failure
Your greatest responsibility is to have a grip over whatever the situation is, and be tenacious about making something positive out of it. I have discovered that those that have fallen and failed in the past had a better mastery of whatever they did. It’s about the attitude…an attitude of what is it to learn from this? Solomon wrote: “For a just man falls seven times, and rise up again…” Imagine the significant number of lessons to be learnt after falling on seven different occasions. A quite significant number of strategies must have been tried and tested, and after using each strategy, they stuck and then another, and another, until you become a master of the Game. It has been confirmed by a group of researchers that it takes seven to ten years, consecutively doing something before you become the master of it. That confirms the Wisdom of Solomon in his Proverbs.
Desist from Playing Blame Game
A significant number of God’s people fell and failed in the scriptures but in the end, they triumphed. Even when it felt heaven was falling, they kept at what they did and firmly focused their attention on God, the Almighty who does not leave His children at any point. “…there shall not fail thee a man in my sight…” (1 Kings 8:25). Even when you fail, there is a redemption provision for rising, as the creator of heaven and the earth has confirmed it in His word. Failing does not necessarily have to be your error, as in the case of Joseph. He narrated dreams to his family and this was the genesis of his falling, as he found himself sold into Egypt and eventually landed in the prison as a slave immigrant in a strange land. Unknown to his brothers, God did not make Joseph a local leader, who was made to reign over a small family, but a world-class leader, who has been ordained to save the whole world from hunger and famine, including Israel. Joseph did not give up on what he has been called to do. He gave interpretations to dreams in prison, and this brought him before Pharaoh. Finally, he became a ruler in Egypt, due to the way he handled his failures and falling.
The message here for you this month is that you have not been created to be a failure. Your creator has made you to be a success, but there is always a time when gold is being refined for its beauty to come out. This process takes place in fire…very hot and painful, but the most crucial of this is to ask why it has to go through fire. The reason is for it to become the best it could be before the gold is ready for use. It therefore implies that if you are there today, going through the refining process, all you have to do now is be patient, and ensure you pick lessons from what you are passing through, because you will need these when you are finally out…ready for the marketplace.
