YOUR FAILURE IS NOT FATAL

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Have you had a moment of failure lately? Well, you are not alone. Here is a list of prominent failures:

*Thomas Edison – his teacher said, "he was too stupid to learn;"
*Albert Einstein -- his teacher said, "He (Albert) was mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams;"
*Decca records who rejected the Beatles
*The newspaper editor who fired Walt Disney because he lack ideas......and, in turn, the Disney executives years later who rejected Star Wars, claiming it would flop at the box office

We all mess up, fail, and make bad choices. If you have recently done so – welcome to the human race. In scripture, Paul offers some encouragement to those who are suffering through trouble and maybe failure.

Here is a fact that we all need to come to grips with. – “Even at our best, we fail.” I hope you’ll see your failures as something less than fatal. At the point of failure, we have a choice to make. We can fail backward or we can fail forward. Failing forward allows us to grow and to learn from our failures. Let’s look at a five fold system in facing our failures.

#1 -- Acknowledge Your Failure
Most of us hate admitting failure. It is important to know that not every failure points to a sin - at least not yours. For example:Job lost his family, home, and belongings. He didn’t do anything wrong.Jesus was seized, convicted, and executed. He didn’t do anything wrong.James 3:2 says "We all stumble in many things." In other words, we all fail. Fight the urge to simply redefine success instead of acknowledging failure. Have you ever heard someone say that a marriage failed? That is a great example of missing the point. Marriages don’t fail, people do.

#2 -- Accept God’s Forgiveness.
There is no failure to big for God to forgive. In fact, forgiveness is God’s specialty. According to the scripture, God is willing to forgive us. 1 John 1:9 says “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.” The key is that we have to accept the forgiveness. That requires that we let it go. Stop dwelling on the magnificence of your failure. If God is willing to forgive you, what gives you the right to refuse to forgive yourself?

#3 -- Apply The Lessons of Failure Toward Success
Don’t totally forget your failures. Don’t beat yourself, but learn something.*Tom Watson Sr., founded IBM and guided "Big Blue" for over 40 years. One of his most impressive moments in leadership occurred when a junior executive lost an enormous amount of money ($10 million) on a risky venture for the company. Watson called the man into the office and the man entered and nervously blurted out, "I guess you want my resignation?" Watson replied, "You can’t be serious. We’ve just spent $10 million educating you." Mistakes can be teachers that provide us with invaluable lessons. Even though we fail, that doesn’t mean we’re failures.

#4 -- Accept Failure as a Fact of Life, Not A Way of Life
Peter the disciple knew all about failure. In the upper room Jesus warned Peter about how he, Peter, would deny him, Jesus, before the rooster crowed three times. Of course, the story in Mark 14 confirms that Peter did just as Christ had foretold. Peter blew it and he knew it. He could have hid and spent the rest of his life as hermit in seclusion. But instead, two months later he preached one of the greatest sermons in Christianity and 3,000 people were saved. Don’t ever let someone call you a failure or a loser. Failure is an event, not a person. It’s something you do, not something you become. Your failures are not fatal. Your attitude during failure determines your altitude after failure.

# 5 -- Arise From Failure & Start Again.
You can fail in two directions: Backward or Forward. You have that choice. You can’t decide if you’re going to fail or not. You’re going to fail. Don’t fall into the trap of looking only to see a composite of all our short comings and failures. God looks beyond our failures to see us. Can you imagine a loving father introducing his children by saying, "This is Sue. She spilled grape juice on the carpet when she was 2, scratched the car with her bike when she was 9, failed to get on the honor roll in all 4 years of high school, she’s been married twice and has had four speeding tickets." Loving fathers don’t memorize their children’s mistakes, neither does our heavenly father. If you’re beating yourself up for the memories of past mistakes, you’re holding yourself to higher standard than even God has. He doesn’t remember the forgiven failure.