The Gift of Failure
written by Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowski
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. ”
During my time in seminary, I had a preaching class that required us to record our sermons and then have them evaluated by our classmates. It was excruciating. My sermons were fine for my level of education and experience, so I shouldn’t have been so hard on myself, but it felt like failure, rather than part of the growth process. After the series of sermons, a group of us went out, and to a person, we each felt incapable of preaching meaningfully.
Popular author Mark Manson claims, “We can be truly successful only at things we are willing to fail at.” Insecurities keep most of us from reaching our full potential. I am not talking about reaching full economic potential. I am talking about reaching your divine calling potential. God calls us to enormous transformations in our own lives and our communities. The path to reaching our full potential isn’t linear. Our journey is fraught with wrong turns and dead ends. Too many people get frustrated, take the setback personally, and tell themselves that they are not worthy or capable of achieving their dream. Rather than continue, they find a dead end they can live with and settle in.
In settling, we do not give ourselves credit, and worse, we do not give God enough credit. God is powerful and loving enough to work through the setbacks with us and help us make the discomfort a learning opportunity. We just need to overcome our fear of failure and learn to see our imperfections as opportunities to learn and grow. When we can risk, fail, succeed, and risk again, we are ready to be used at a deeper level by the Holy Spirit.
We don’t try to fail, but when we’ve done our best and something didn’t work, we have the opportunity to learn and try again in a different way. Today, think about the perceived failures in your life, especially the ones that tore at your self-image. How might you have increased your learning and wisdom? Don’t let this reflection hurt your self-image all over again. Realize that you have enough distance now to reflect without too much emotion. As you remember, evaluate, and pray, the Holy Spirit will empower you. It will take you to a place beyond failure, giving you wisdom and confidence to reach new heights. Then, a momentary failure becomes a step along the path to a blessed life!
