Learning From Failure

Yesterday we raised the question: What do we do with our failures?

I have to imagine that we all have those moments when life doesn’t work out like we’d hoped. Maybe we fall short of our own expectations. Maybe we are given an opportunity to do the right thing and we fail to do it. 

Some people will just continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over because they can’t admit they made a mistake in the first place. (You probably don’t know anyone like that!) Others don’t believe they can ever change, or they won’t ask for the help they need. Others still somehow have it in their head that they are a bad person, and that failure can lead to self-loathing or tremendous guilt that drives them right back to the same mistakes over and over. 

I’ll never forget years ago, a young man said to me, “Joe, what I did was so bad. Most mornings, I can’t even stand to look at myself in the mirror.”

So, do we let our failures define us? Do they get the final verdict?

When I reflect on the failures in my own life, things that I truly regret, there have been some failures of commission – things I’ve done, that hurt others, that I wish I could undo. There have been many more failures of omission, things I should have done or said, people I could have helped but didn’t. And it is painful to even think about it…

However, I’ve become more and more aware that If we pay attention, if we own up to our mistakes and don’t shift the blame, our failures have a lot to teach us. Our failures can become sources of tremendous compassion, strength, and resolve. Compassion because it is humbling to fail. It is hard to be judgmental and hyper-critical of people when we realize that we are all really in need of God’s grace.

But also strength…There’s this line in Earnest Hemingway’s book, A Farewell to Arms, that has stuck with me over many years. Hemingway writes, “The world breaks everybody. And many are strong in the broken places.” The truth is we fall down a lot. And when our wounds heal, there is the potential for us to come out on the other side of it much wiser, kinder, and stronger. And with resolve. 

May you learn from your failures in life. May you become strong in the broken places. May you turn back and use your strength to strengthen others. And may you know in the very deepest part of your being that God never gives up on you.  

Let us pray: Wash over us with your grace, O God. Empower us to turn again to you, and follow you with all of our hearts. Amen.