Failure

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker.

(Dennis Waitley)

You may fall but you can’t fail if you don’t quit. The old expression that we have heard many times is true: quitters never win and winners never quit. Falling does not necessarily make one a failure. Struggle surrounds the birth of every accomplishment, every miracle and every victory. “The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on our gains. Any fool can do that. The important thing is to profit from our losses” (Fred Smith). It usually takes a good or bad fall, depending on how you look at it, to help us realize that failure is a part of the learning process.

At the last supper Jesus announced to his disciples, “Tonight all of you will desert me.” Peter declared, “I will never desert you!” A few hours later he denied knowing Jesus three times. His strength, his stubborn tenacity and his determined will were not enough to sustain him in the heat of battle. Jesus proclaimed, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in Him bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” We cannot live for God unless He empowers us. Peter fell but he did not fail. He got up. “A righteous man may fall seven times and rise again” (Proverbs).

“Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeat failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. The only time you don’t fail is the last time you try something and it works” (Charles Kittering). Don’t ever give up and always keep in mind the fact that all things—everything good and everything bad—work to benefit those who love God (Apostle Paul). “Failure is delay, not defeat; it is a temporary detour, not a dead end; it is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing and being nothing” (Denis Waitley).