I think the great missionary to India, William Carey, offers us a profound insight into this whole area of failure and success. He once said: “I’m not afraid of failure; I’m afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter.”1
As I thought about this quote, it really began to resonate in my mind and heart. Failure is not a bad thing when we are doing things with the right motives for the advancement of the kingdom of God. In fact, when we share the gospel, most of the time people will not respond positively to our message. So, in one sense we can view this as a failure, but in another sense, we are planting seeds and being faithful to the call of the Lord. In this case short term failure is not really failure at all since we are called to share the gospel, and when we do this, we are successfully carrying out the ministry we are called to carry out.
In other cases, failure teaches us how to succeed later. For example, a baby learning to walk repeatedly stumbles and falls. But with each fall he or she learns valuable lessons that will eventually allow them to walk! Or take the case of the inventor of the electric light bulb, Thomas Edison. Edison viewed failure as a crucial part of the learning process. He once said: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”2 He believed that persistence was the key to overcoming obstacles.
But, as Carey said, the thing that he was afraid of was “succeeding at things that don’t matter.” Imagine being successful at making money but using it only for one’s own pleasures. Or spending one’s time being successful at winning a golf game with friends. While this can make you happy, in the long run it has little value in the spiritual realm, which is what really counts with God. And in (Mark 8:36) we read “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” Talk about succeeding at things that the world considers the ultimate in success. But imagine, gaining all the world has to offer but, in the end, losing our soul for all eternity in a literal hell!
My friends, I have failed many times in life, but praise God through these failures I have learned valuable lessons on how to succeed spiritually in the long run. And after all isn’t that what life is all about – training grounds for eternity! We are here now, on planet earth, to fall more in love with Jesus, advance God’s kingdom, and bring glory to our Lord. That’s what really matters in life, and we all will experience failures as we attempt to carry out God’s plan for us. To me failures are just steppingstones on the pathway to bringing glory to God!