Having a Failure Doesn't Make You One!

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.

I was thinking this week about a conversation that I had with a minister in Michigan. He belonged to another denomination for which I was conducting a workshop. For some reason he sought me out to talk about his failure. He had been pastor of a 1700 member church. He had begun with a few people and had built attendance, membership, and buildings. Then he found himself on a treadmill and in the midst of the success and stress, he had an affair with a woman in the church. Some of his minister friends advised him to go to the West Coast and start over.

He said, "No, this is where I failed and here I must confront myself and my wrong and make it right." He did. He stayed right there and got his life under control and headed in the right direction. Then he turned to me and said, "You know, having a failure doesn't make you one!" Listen to that statement again, "Having a failure doesn't make you a failure!" Today I hope to say a few things that will help you deal with a sense of failure in your life! You do sometimes feel that, don't you?

First, you are in a tradition that is marked with a long list of failures. I mean that the Judeo-Christian tradition that is set forth in the Bible highlights a number of failures.

It begins on page one of the Bible - Adam and Eve failed. They were placed in a perfect environment with just one directive to abstain from the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden. And they failed. Abraham, father of the faith, failed. He lied to Pharaoh about his wife, saying that

she was his kin.

Moses, the giver of the law, failed. He murdered an Egyptian who was fighting with an Israelite.

David, the Psalmist and later the King of Israel, failed. First, he committed adultery with the wife of one of his most faithful soldiers and then he had the soldier executed.

Sorry, women, the men did not hold a monopoly on the failures. Rebecca, wife of Isaac, helped her son Jacob deceive his father and receive the blessing.

Lots two daughters on successive nights got their father drunk and went into his tent. Both conceived to give him off spring.

Jezebel, wife of Ahab, led the Israelites to paganism and swore to kill the prophet Elijah

And, the wife of Hosea was a harlot.

The Bible in cold candor reports the failures of the greatest leaders in the nation.

But the phenomenon of failure is not limited to the Bible. Are not those among us

who in the rehearsal of our lives can find instances of failure? Perhaps some of us have failed in relationships that were important to us. Maybe we have been enslaved to vices or addictions - sex, alcohol or drugs. Probably some of us have failed vocations or work. Others have had difficult marriages and failed to get them put together. Divorce has marked the failure for many of us. Then there is parenting. Who has been the perfect or reared the perfect children?

And, the list goes on and on with failed friendships, failed loves and failed commitments. If this list does not include you, do you not have your own sense of failure buried somewhere inside?

Why do you think that we human beings fail? I was pondering this question and I came up with a list of reasons, a list of sources of our failure. Here are 12 of them.

1. Setting unrealistic goals - unachievable goals.

2. Lack of discipline and diligence in following our plans.

3. Change of circumstances that make achievement impossible.

4. Lack of ability - our gifts don't match the tasks.

5. Denial of limits - greed, megalomania, egomania and power craze.

6. Character flaws - yielding to temptations that divert our attention, our appetites or feed our pride. 7. Failure to keep at the task - stopping 5 minutes before the miracle.

8. Poor, uninformed decisions.

9. False assessment of the situation that leads to the wrong strategy.

10. Imbalance may succeed in vocation but it will fail in the family. ­

11. Bonus: Taking too great a risk.

12. Bonus 2: Pure, unmitigated selfishness and self-will.

Ways of Dealing with Failure

I hope today to say some small word of encouragement to each of us about our

failures and how to deal with them.

1. Follow the Way of the Psalmist. I invite you to imagine the psalmist, a person just like you and me. He had his own struggles in life that he describes to us: While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. The failure was present. He groaned all day and his strength dried up like water under a summer sun.

Then, the psalmist says I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD, and you forgave the guilt of my sin” With the struggle over, the guilt gone and the spirit £fee he could say, "Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven."

The way of the psalmist is to acknowledge to yourself and to God the nature of your failure. He then recommended tills approach to all of us: Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. Ps. 32:4-6

Having a failure did not make the psalmist a failure - he found a way out of failure.

2. Respond to help that offered. One of our failings inspired by pride is our unwillingness to receive help from those who can give us direction and support.

The President of a leading bank and a loan company in Louisiana made some serious mistakes – like fraud and embezzlement. Things went wrong and the community ostracized him. Nobody would hire him. Finally, he got a job driving a truck.

Knowing of his situation, a Presbyterian minister (Ed Hurley) wrote him a letter. The man received the letter and reasoned that if the minister cared for him, maybe God did. He responded to the minister’s overtures and confessed his sins. With the encouragement of the minister he joined the church. He went before the session to be examined for membership. All the other prospective members told rather superficial stories compared to his. He spoken openly about his failure, shame, and desire for God in his life. He stood there speaking to that session for two reasons: a minister cared enough to reach out and he was humble enough to welcome him.

Having a failure didn’t make him one.

3. Cut your losses and move. (i.e. acknowledge your failure and look for new opportunities to move on with your life. A friend of mine had a notion about opening a consulting office in Seattle. Management concurred and he moved to the northwest to open a branch. The context changed rapidly when Boeing laid off 9,000 employees. Nobody wanted consulting and the clients that the home office had were not given to him. He worked there for 18 months in a critical situation, admitted failure and moved to a new opportunity.

Remember, having a failure doesn't make you a failure.

4. Give yourself credit! Don't take all the blame. Often when we have failed, we put all the blame on our shoulders. A couple of friends of mine were unable to have children. So they adopted two girls. One of them we will call Becky. Becky was the child of a woman addicted to both alcohol and drugs. The influence of these all passed through the fetus. As a result Becky’s wiring is different from the normal child. Neither is her behavior. Whatever you can imagine a young woman doing to break the hearts of parents, your list is still to short. She did everything, plus! Sarah, her adopted mother, said: We did everything that we could. Discipline, correct, support and change her behavior. We sent her to correctional institution, counseling, a camp for troubled kids - everything. Nothing worked for her good. But with the help of good mends, counseling and straight talk, we decided that we were not to blame for her behavior. We did the best that we could, given what we had to work with. See, having failed does not make you a failure; you may not have even failed.

5. Build your success out of the ashes of failure. The stuff that you call "failure” is often the _stuff that fuels your success. I have a minister friend who made all A's at Princeton Seminary but for 3 grades. All of these were F's. She couldn't learn Greek. How she got ordained in the PCUSA is something of a miracle. But, you know what, she did. Probably, she uses her small knowledge of reek more often than those of us who made all A’s.

Having failed did not make her a failure!

I spent a month in the Dalton Church. I knew Bob Shaw from other places and I

made an appointment to visit with him in his office. While sitting there I asked him to tell me about himself - -his life, career and business. He told me that he went to Suwannee, the University of the South, and flunked out of school. He came back to Dalton to work in his father's small carpet business. Over the next 40 years he built the largest Carpet Company in the World.

Having a failure did not make him one!

6. In conclusion I have one more admonition: "Value the Scars." John White, a

former student of mine at CTS once told me about how his family helped a refugee from Viet Nam. At 10 years of age he lacked the sensitivity that he might have had later. So he asked the guest what it was like to live in Nam. The Man got up from the table, pulled up a tank-top on and showed him his wounds. He had long dark scars where he had fought since he was a youth. John said, "It is a wonder that you are not at the front of the peace movement. II The young man said, "Who say's I'm not."

Value the scars. They may shape your future!

1. Setting unrealistic goals - unachievable goals.

2. Lack of discipline and diligence in following our plans.

3. Change of circumstances that make achievement impossible.

4. Lack of ability - our gifts don't match the tasks.

5. Denial of limits - greed, megalomania, egomania and power craze.

6. Character flaws - yielding to temptations that divert our attention,

our appetites or feed our pride.

7. Failure to keep at the task - stopping 5 minutes before the miracle.

8. Poor, uninformed decisions.

9. False assessment of the situation that leads to the wrong strategy.

10. Imbalance may succeed in vocation but it will fail in the family. ­

11. Bonus: Taking too great a risk.

12. Bonus 2: Pure, unmitigated selfishness and self-will.

What to do with your failure:

1. Follow the Way of the Psalmist.

2. Respond to help that offered.

3. Cut your losses and move.

4. Give yourself credit! Don't take all the blame.

5. Build your success out of the ashes of failure.

6. In conclusion I have one more admonition: "Value the Scars."