Failing Forward

I've learned by now to be content whatever my circumstances. I'm as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether I'm full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. Phil. 4:11-13 (The Message)

Success and failure are both moving targets. Changing trends and fads mean that people despise today what they may admire tomorrow. Once in junior high, I went along with my parents to a conference. While our moms and dads attended meetings, I spent my time at the hotel, playing card games with the other kids my age. One nerdy kid with glasses named Bill won nearly every game, and nobody seemed to like him. Later I found out he dropped out of college to start a computer software company named Microsoft.

Many think the apostle Paul was successful. Because of his work, the gospel spread rapidly throughout the Roman Empire. Within one hundred years of his death, strong churches existed everywhere he had been. But few in Paul’s day, including Paul, would call him a success. Paul evidently was not much to look at or listen to. By his own admission, at best he was a so-so speaker. His work often got him in trouble with the local religious leaders and civil authorities, which led to beatings, imprisonment, and getting thrown out of town.

Then-prevailing standards of success or failure didn't much matter to Paul; he didn't use them to measure his personal worth or his work. Interestingly, Paul still says that he had to learn to be content with his circumstances. He didn't start out with that attitude. It's not human nature to be happy despite our circumstances; we want to be happy because of our circumstances. But as a result of Christ's transforming presence in our lives, we can learn to shift the source of contentment (and discontentment) from circumstances to God. We are His beloved sons and daughters—loved for our place in Christ, not because we succeed or fail. That is our truest source of joy.

In his book, Winning Smart after Losing Big, entrepreneur Rob Stearns echoes this perspective regarding his own failures. There's a big difference, Stearns writes, between experiencing a failure and being a failure: "You are the same person after your loss as you were before your loss." It is strength of character that enables us to get up and keep moving when we've failed.

But where do we find strength to fail forward? Paul freely acknowledged that such strength is not native to his soul. It came to him from Christ. "I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am." Hardships and failures taught the apostle to ask for strength. He learned to fail forward into the everlasting arms of God.

Question for discussion:

• What have we learned from our failures?