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Learning to Fail: Making the Most of Your Messes

Ready, Set, Fail!

There are countless ways to fail.

Right now I'm writing this from McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, surrounded by the chiming and chirping of slot machines. This is a place where — from the bright hallways of the airport to the smoky casinos of the Strip — an entire industry bets on the idea that people fail, often, but rarely pay much attention to it. Pumping cash into a slot machine, tempted by the promise of a potential jackpot, requires a person to overlook the obvious: People lose more often in Vegas than they win. That's why casinos exist. That's why they get rich and their customers don't.

Failure is a part of life, but we rarely reflect on it. Why not?

Maybe it's our culture, where the self-help empire has convinced us there's nothing we can't accomplish with some self-confidence, the latest energy drink, and a killer set of washboard abs.

Maybe it's because of our history, which memorializes the achievements of our heroes — the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, the celebrity activism of Bono — rather than their disappointments.¹

Maybe it's even our faith, where we make religious superstars out of Bible characters who sinned against God far more than they ever obeyed Him. Adam and Eve spoiled Eden. Moses was a murderer before he ever led his people out of Egypt. David was a man after God's own heart but also a man pursuing his own deviant ambitions, lusts and power trips. Peter denied Christ within hours of pledging his loyalty to Him. Paul identified himself as "the worst of sinners."²

We are fragile and broken people. The Bible makes that pretty clear. Why do we pretend otherwise?

Blessings in Disguise

Perhaps we reflect less on failure because of how we categorize it. Here's an example: We talk about God's blessings all the time in religious circles, giving Him credit when things go well. Get a scholarship? Praise God for that financial blessing. Ace the exam? Thank God for your intellect, or for your ability to study and learn, or for clarity of thought. When we succeed, it's God's doing.

But what about when we fail? Failure is something for which we usually take credit ourselves, particularly when it comes to moral failure. Let's say you and your girlfriend let yourselves go too far one night — ignoring the spiritual stop signs — and you plunge headlong down the road toward a quick physical release. You've failed, sexually speaking, because you gave in to lust and passion and a string of small, but bad choices. That's sin, and it's your fault.³

So what do you do next? Do you wallow in the failure? Do you plunge into a spiritual funk and gear up in sackcloth and ashes? Well, those are certainly options, and the sackcloth thing would probably weird out your girlfriend enough that the passion would no longer be a problem. But a better choice would be to use your mutual failure as a learning experience. Admit you messed up. Ask forgiveness. And then remember that God can do some great things with screw-ups. That's the good news of the Bible.

The truth is that God can take all of our failures — from personal sins to broken relationships or even financial problems — and turn them into good.⁴ Our job is to let Him do this, which means one thing: When we fail, we have to learn to make the most of it.

Making the Most of Failure

History is full of the stories of people who found success after a long string of letdowns, which means they viewed failure not as something final, but as a temporary setback on the road toward success. One of history's great "failures" was Thomas Edison, who burned through thousands of different materials, from bamboo to platinum, before figuring out that carbonized cotton thread made the best filament in an electric light bulb.⁵ Each of those disappointments brought him closer to his final achievement. Why? Because he looked at each failure as an opportunity to learn.

Believe it or not, God can do the same with your failures — even the sexual ones. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that late-night dalliances are the keys to success, and that the best thing to do is rack up a bunch of them so you can eventually conquer the sin. Sure, it sounds fun, but it's probably not the healthiest idea for someone trying to live in the way of Jesus. However, the times when you are broken are the times when you are most shapeable, which means God can wring some good out of your mistakes.

Let's stay with the "going too far" scenario with your girlfriend. Part of the process of accepting God's grace and forgiveness is being teachable about the situation itself. Surely there was a point when you realized things were headed in a certain direction. What warning signs did you miss or ignore? What was it about the environment that weakened your willpower?⁶ How can you guard against it in the future?

Yes, you messed up. But you don't have to wallow in it. Use that failure as a chance to learn more about yourself. Put your weaknesses under the microscope. Decide now how you'll respond next time you're tempted. Let God's forgiveness point you toward personal growth.

Failure and Flexibility

Of course, personal growth isn't the only positive byproduct of failure. Consider the apostle Paul, who "wasted" a lot of time during his missionary journeys being routed through the Roman judiciary system. He was jailed in Caesarea, endured a shipwreck as a prisoner on the way to Rome, and was eventually put under house arrest.⁷ Personally, if I set off on a mission trip and spent most of it in jail, I'd consider the trip a pretty significant failure. Yet some of Paul's most beloved letters, including Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, were written while under lock and key. And he regularly described his "chains" not as a hindrance, but as tools to share the Gospel.⁸

Sometimes failures can be God's way of nudging us toward a new direction we might not otherwise have taken. A failed job interview might eventually lead to a better opportunity and a more promising career. A failed relationship might be necessary before you meet the girl of your dreams. A failed business endeavor might give you the creative boost you need to take the next risk, one that will finally pay off.

So the next time you fail, try to view it from a distance. Does it open up new doors? Does it give you a flexibility you didn't have before? Does it shine light on certain situations? There have been times when I looked back on painful parts of my life only to see God quietly working in the background of my failures, using them to steer me in new directions I'd never have discovered on my own.

Cliché Alert!

Nobody likes failure. It's embarrassing. It's painful. It gets in the way of our plans. But because we are humans, failure is inevitable. So when it happens, will you curse it? Will you pout, whine or give up? Or will you look at it as a chance to start over, to gain some wisdom, to let God strengthen you?

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Do you view your mistakes as opportunities?

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I hope it's the latter, because at the risk of lapsing into inspirational-poster territory, I'm gonna wrap this up with a cliché-soaked breadcrumb of wisdom: If you want to succeed, you must first learn to fail. Say that in a Yoda voice and you're golden.⁹