Failed – But Not a Failure
Are you one of the few people who has succeeded in everything you attempted? Most of us can remember trying to make it, achieve, earn it, or find success but falling short. You?
I wanted to fly airplanes for the Air Force. Many of my brothers had been in the Air Force, and a few even made a career of it. In college as I was draft age and thinking I might be called into service, I decided to try to enlist rather than wait to be drafted. In a relatively brief conversation with the Air Force recruiter on campus at Murray State University (Go Racers – not racists – RACERS – Just want to be clear). He took my application and saw my interest in pilot training, but grounded me quickly noticing my rather thick lens in my glasses. Guess he knew I would not pass the vision exam. He did say that my math skills might allow me to be a navigator. No, thanks. I wanted to drive!
That wasn’t my only disappointment, of course. My relationship skills were lacking; and while developing friendships with guys and dating relationships with girls, I discovered I had much to learn and no real plan on how to learn what I needed to know to succeed. I could say this was a pattern: try, try, try, fail, give up, move on!
Sports was my first field of endeavor where the pattern was illustrated. In baseball, football, and basketball you could find me trying, trying, practicing, failing, being rejected, then quitting. I guess one good thing about all this is that I just “moved on” to try again.
Failure in athletics, though humiliating, was not devastating. I found success in school and worked hard to make good grade…not to learn….but to make good grades. Thankfully, I did learn some stuff along the way. I had enough success to actually earn a scholarship to college. I came to faith in Jesus as my Savior a few years before, as a junior in high school, and God started revealing how He accepted me even though I didn’t think anyone else did, and I certainly was not confident enough to accept “me” as I was. I always wanted to be someone else….better that I was. Wanting to achieve is commendable. Rejecting your value as a human being is dangerous and opens us up to all kinds of foolish means of attempting to prove our value or importance.
Coming to a new faith in Jesus Christ and accepting His gifts of forgiveness, eternal life, and a right standing with God was the foundation on which Jesus changed my life. I look back on my string of failures and see how God used those failures to direct me to areas where I could excel, achieve, be helpful to others, gain new friends, find a loving wife, build a strong family that I love, and find a career path into working with others to help them build strong marriages and families.
He accepted me first, then others accepted me and loved me, then I accepted me….finally. God loves us as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us as we are. He has so much more. He is still working on me….you too?
Action Step:
Try helping those around you by helping meet this need in their life:
Acceptance:Receiving another person willingly and unconditionally especially when the other’s behavior has been imperfect. Being willing to continue caring for anther in spite of offenses. Not allowing “differences” to stop us from caring for others.
You will discover what Jesus said is true:
“It is more blessed to give than to receive”. Acts 20:35