The Heart Matters

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. 

 - Winston Churchill

Death as failure

If any leader could understand contending with failure and with bearing the weight of the criticism of the watching world, then Churchill fits the bill. He authorized the brutal bombing of Dresden, Germany. There are those who say that he should have been charged with a war crime due to the high loss of civilian life. I have read that the bodies of children were stacked seven to eight high as mass burials were prepared. Death – this must be what failure looks like. The world gasps in horror and sneers with mockery. Yet, Churchill continued as a brilliant, stable leader.

Under the leadership of the Lord, failure is anything but a lack of success. Often when faced with immanent failure, we as Christians comfort ourselves with Romans 8:28, 29.

 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.

God’s purpose for our life is that we are to be made in his image – not to follow in the image of Adam – who fell away from relying on God and on God’s way of life. Adam became self-sufficient and self-centered. He had become dead in his sin. His life source had been cut off when he made this decision to follow His own plan. God desires to give us life – a life lived centered on Christ, who is now our life source. Christ wants to put the Old Adam to death and to give new, abundant life.

Often we become confused and childishly reason that some how our lives will work out the way that we desire. We love the Lord and He loves us as His children. What Father allows His children to suffer? Why should we experience loss – least of all failure? Why shouldn’t I have a “good life?”

In humility, we need to realize that Romans 8 is not telling us that the “future is so bright I gotta wear shades,” but rather acknowledge that God is working things out for our good and that good is to be conformed to the image of His Son, Christ Jesus. It is not about an absence of pain, suffering or failure. It is about becoming a new creation. That process involves more than a few bumps and bruises. That process involves death.

One way that God transforms our person is through failure – complete, abject failure. So often Christians just freak out and “lose it” because someone might notice just how freaking screwed up we are. Someone might just realize that I am one messed up dude. What then? Oh the horror of it all!

When we resist accepting our complete inability to succeed and to love others maturely, this is the true tragedy and loss. That is the genuine horror. For it is through the instrument of failure that God crafts and molds us as new creatures. Why the fight? Why all the rationalization and hysteria?

As a parent, I get the rationalizing and the freak sessions. What will others think? They will know I can’t do it. People will know that I don’t have it all together. I will be exposed as a fool and as weak. People may even talk about me. What if my parents were right about me? Just thinking about this makes my head explode.

God often uses the failures in our lives to turn us away from our self-dependence toward the living-giving source, who is Christ. Paul knew this well, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” “No longer I, but Christ.”

God takes a wild, unruly natural man and breaks him down. God disciplines those that He loves. Failure is a huge part of that breaking. Failure prepares the servant of the Lord to love those that are “unlovable.” Before such breaking there would have never been patience or compassion for the weak. Through our suffering and failings the Lord transforms the haughty to humble pillars of gentle strength.

Last night my heart was troubled deeply as a sister in the Lord shared her struggles. I was terribly afraid for her and what lay before her. I wanted to take this burden from her. I sat in prayer and spent some time with the Lord.

I know that the Lord has great plans. Huge decisions – even suffering lay before this dear sister. This pain lay before all who seek out the Lord and who desire to become complete in Him. Indeed, the Lord has a great plan for her life – plan where he desires to transform her into something greater than she could ever be without this hurt. Of this, I am certain.

I think of Peter. He had just denied Christ and ran away like a pansy. What a failure this brash man was. Everyone knew it. Christ did an amazing thing. He entrusted Peter with the church. Jesus handed the shepherding of his flock to Peter – the one who had failed so greatly. Christ could have commissioned John with this mighty responsibility or any of the other disciples, but He entrusted the church to Peter.

That just blows my mind. Peter had to fall hard into the pit of despairing failure. His character – his person – was radically changed by this experience. The Holy Spirit surely strengthened it. So many lives were changed by the transformed, shepherding Peter.

So should we hide, deny or be ashamed of our failings? Never, by no means! Paul himself boasted in his short-comings:

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

As Paul, so too ought we shout out our inadequacies and confess our failings to one another. For God knows what great plans he has for your life as His loved son or daughter. Then next time you mess up royally and fail – don’t sweat it, you’re in good company. God used Peter and he will use you as well. So the next time you fail, do it with enthusiasm.

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