Are You A Winner? Have You Failed Yet?

Are you a winner?  Have you failed yet?

Almost everyone shares some pride and excitement when talking about their victories in life. So they should. Victories are to be celebrated.

There is less enthusiasm to discuss failings in life. This is understandable. Talking about the time you almost ‘fell off the cliff’ or almost lost your career or good reputation is enough to send anyone into a protection mode. We usually don’t want to go back to those troubled arenas of experience.

 On the other hand, we should never forget that success in life is always preceded by some failure. There isn’t a successful person in the world who doesn’t have a whole list of failures that preceded their success. Their success was due to the earlier failures!

Everyone knows that you crawl before you walk and you walk before you run. You also fall many a time before mastering the ability to walk or run. Life itself follows a similar process. It takes much practice to master anything of value in life. Always has. Always will. Unfortunately, we are always tempted to meet a challenge or obstacle in life by longing for an easier way or just plain quitting. It has been proven that most people quit just before they succeed. They never know it. Perhaps we should look at failure in a completely different light.

Those obstacles we find in our life walk are usually opportunities to achieve something new and different. Those obstacles demand a different approach. The different approach is part attitude, part perspective and part determination to achieve some goal in life. It always requires some change in ‘me’ to gain what is needed to overcome the obstacle. This is not necessarily easy nor is the path clearly marked. But one thing is clear. Doing the same thing over and over again will not get a different result.

Jesus confronted failure all the time. How do you feed five thousand plus people with only a few fish and a couple of bread rolls? How do you get people to cooperate to address a storm? How do you help people grow beyond themselves when they don’t believe in themselves nor anyone else for that matter? And how do we change, adapt or adopt new habits and behaviors that get us to where we want to go when we don’t have the confidence to make those changes. 

Many if not most pass through life lamenting their failures and ‘bad luck’, thinking poorly of themselves and their abilities to overcome life challenges. They are resigned to their lot in life. Meanwhile successful people recognize life’s failures and disappointments as temporary setbacks and challenges to be overcome. They know that luck does not exist. Luck is only an excuse used by the failing. How about you? What is your perspective? How do you listen to God when faced with life’s dilemmas? Do you work as hard to overcome them as to avoid or ignore them?