Failure

For some reason over the last few days I've had a commercial on my mind. Back during the summer between my junior and senior years of college I had the privilege of serving as a counselor at teen church camp. This was the second time I had been a counselor and so there was a base relationship with some of the guy campers. I remember during one of the evening services there was one guy who pulled me aside and asked if we could talk.

We went out and sat on a bench and I listened to him talk. His family was moving out of state right before his senior year of high school. This teen camp would be his last district church event before the move. He was having a rough time with it because this is where he had grown up. So many of his friends were through church and church events, and now he was moving.

I don't remember what I said to him, but that conversation was the start of a friendship. I've since lost touch with him, I can't even find him on facebook any more. But for the rest of that summer we'd message back and forth frequently. It's been several years since we've talked, but one day he shared something with me that I've never forgotten.

The commercial I mentioned earlier was made by Nike, and it features basketball legend Michael Jordan. You see him get out of a vehicle, people take pictures and high five him as he walks towards a set of doors. As he walks you hear his voice sharing different statistics from his career. "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed."

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc)

He doesn't talk about the games he's won, the more than 32,000 points he's scored, or any of the six championships he won. He doesn't talk about any of his MVP awards or All-star appearances. His two Olympic gold medals aren't talked about or any other records that he set. Instead you have one of the greatest basketball players to ever handle a ball talking about the many ways he's failed.

I read how after Jordan came back from his first basketball retirement the Chicago Bulls were struggling to make the playoffs. After he came back the team went 13-4 and made it to the semi-finals. The ended up losing in six games, but a big moment happened in game 1. Jordan was stripped of the ball from behind in what turned into the game-winning basket. The player who stripped the ball later said, "[He] didn't look like the old Michael Jordan."

He worked hard that off season, and the next year the Bulls went 72-10, the best record in NBA history. The reason Michael Jordan succeeds because of failure is that it drives him to improve. It is because Michael Jordan works harder because of failure that he is one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

How do you respond to failure? Does it serve as motivation to make you better, driving you to work harder? Or does it make you bitter and resentful? Do you turn failure into success, or stew in it, wasting the opportunity?

We are going to fail, but our failure is opportunity to improve. Failure shows us weakness, it shows us areas that need improvement. And because of failure we can become stronger and better. The Bible tells us that "God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8.28). All things, not just the good, but the hard, the times we fail, and the times we fall apart.

The purpose of God is for us to become like Christ (Romans 8.29). And Paul tells us in Philippians 1, that we will have struggles and face hardships for Christ's sake. But Paul declares in Philippians 3, that he will "Press on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3.14).

Through the hard times, through the failure, we continue to press on towards Christlikeness. We take the failure we face, and allow it to mold us more into the likeness of Christ. We allow God to use our failures, and cause them to work together for good.

You will fail over and over and over again. Will you succeed because of it?

"I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread."

To God alone be the Glory!

Peace be with you