We must fail. I have come to that conclusion through a variety of influences. Life’s lessons show that we learn much when as Robert Burns so aptly observed “The best laid schemes of mice and men; Go often awry; And leave us nothing but grief and pain; For promised joy! “. Often it is not in the victories and triumphs that we are drawn closer to the truths of God but in the failures.
When I was a younger man, enjoying the fruits of rigorous physical training, it was not the success of lifting ten more pounds which drove me onward but rather the failure of lifting twenty. As a leader of people and promoter of purposes I often have found that there are those who just don’t get it. No matter how much time and energy I put into them they cannot seem to grasp the importance of doing it my way. They seem to be constantly looking to build a better mousetrap and not realizing I was the best answer I knew of. I have failed to teach them and they have failed to learn. We would never consider reviewing our plans or methods if they continually succeeded. We don’t have to fix what is not broke. Yet there is plenty which is broke. Henry Ford found that the old method of one craftsman building one carriage at a time from start to finish was inefficient and not cost effective. He fixed that problem with an assembly line. The assembly line was able to reproduce the same piece rapidly and at a much greater cost; including the mistakes. The failure of the assembly line is that it can repeat the same faulty error rapidly and results in millions of recalls. Each recalled item must be fixed by one craftsman.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”. Sometimes we are weakened by our own efforts. Oscar Wilde wrote “Experience is simply the name we give to our mistakes”. Yet we say the same thing about our often touted successes. Failure is evident in every aspect of life. In order for one Olympian to be successful in obtaining the gold medal, many, many more must fail. We are not driven to our knees before a Holy God when we are exalted in triumph. We do not seek miraculous healing and divine intervention when we enjoy good health. It is when we fail that we change, choose a new course or examine our purposes and plans. Why would we question the wisdom of building our home on a beautiful beach when we have never experienced a hurricane?
We must fail in order to succeed. We are not driven to sharpen our skills or hone our techniques because what we are doing produces the results we desire. We must fail in order to grow. There is nothing emptier than for someone’s entire life to be characterized by uselessness. It is far bettered viewed to have tried and failed than to have not tried. Alfred Lord Tennyson said ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. We resonate with that thought. We understand the futility of a life without trying. “Failure is not an option” it has been said by many who with good intentions approach desperate situations. While it may indeed be motivational, it is not true. Failure comes as a welcome friend when our desires and intentions deceive us. In John fifteen Jesus taught His disciples that failure to grow results from being separated from Him and results in uselessness.
We must fail in order to be Holy. In Genesis chapter eighteen, Abrahm has a conversation with God in which he appears to be successful in limiting the Lord. He has just been told the place where his favorite Nephew lives is about to be judged and destroyed. So he reasons with man’s reasoning. He implies that it would wonderfully reveal the mercy and long suffering of Jehovah if He would spare the entire population if even fifty holy minded people were found to be living amongst the tens of thousands in that city. God agrees with Abrahm and commits to withhold His wrath if such a small number of true believers could be located. Then Abrahm seizes upon his success by repeating the same line of reasoning for forty and then thirty, twenty and even ten. He again received the same results. Yet it was a dismal failure in preventing the destruction of that city. I’ve often said the quality of our lives depends on the quality of our questions. Perhaps Abraham should have reframed his question to find out from the Lord how many righteous people were living there. Jesus called Peter down harshly when he was insisting God’s ways were not correct. Just because we do not understand a thing does not mean it is wrong.
And if we fail to recognize that we have failed then we will fail to succeed or grow or become Holy or do anything with the beautiful gift of life that the Lord Jesus has given us except waste it and be cast into the fire as useless unproductive vines (Matthew 3:10). I am not saying failure is our goal. I am saying it is a part of our path because we are sin derailed, fallen from grace, selfish, short sighted, stubborn children of the Most High God. By the way, do you think any of the quoted men above were able to present their lives before a Holy God and say this is why you should let me into your heaven? If you are a Christian, a true believer in the salvation provided by the creator of all, then you recognized your failure in order to get there. You did not become a Christian because you reasoned it out carefully, step by step as Abrahm did. You failed. And when you filed to be holy within your own self and saw your failure as the sure ticket to hell it truly was, then you succeeded in trusting Him.