Song: ”GOD Is In Charge” by the Soulful Past

Good morning and welcome to another “Starting Our Day together: A Few Minutes To Get The Day Started In The Right Direction”.

As we get our day started, I want to give you something to think about today. And the thought is very simple: Failure is not the end. It’s the beginning of learning. Somewhere along the way, many of us were taught to be afraid of failure. We learned to associate failure with embarrassment.

                With weakness.

                With not being good enough.

 But I want to challenge that thinking this morning.

Failure does not have to be the place where your story ends.

Failure can be the classroom where your next chapter begins.

You tried something, and it didn’t work.

You made a decision, and it turned out to be the wrong one.

You trusted somebody you probably shouldn’t have trusted.

You took a chance and came up short.

You started something and couldn’t finish it.

Maybe you failed in a relationship.

Maybe you failed financially.

Maybe you failed professionally.

Maybe you made a mistake as a parent, a spouse, a friend, a leader, or simply as a human being.

Whatever it was, here’s the question: What did you learn? Because if you learned something from the experience, then the experience wasn’t wasted.

Failure is an event, not an identity

One of the biggest mistakes we make is turning something that happened to us into a description of who we are. There’s a tremendous difference between saying: “I failed” and saying: “I am a failure.” Those are not the same thing.

                Failure describes an outcome. It doesn’t define a person.

                You can make a bad decision without being a bad person.

 You can have a failed attempt without having a failed life.

                You can lose one battle without losing the war.

 So don’t take a temporary event and turn it into a permanent identity. Your failure doesn’t get to name you. And more importantly, your failure doesn’t get to determine what God can still do with your life. God has always used imperfect people. When we read the Bible, we don’t find a collection of perfect people who never made mistakes.

We find people who failed and then learned. Peter said he would never deny Jesus. But when the pressure came, Peter denied Him three times. That was failure. But that wasn’t the end of Peter’s story.

                Jesus restored him.

Peter learned.

                Peter grew.

 And the man who once denied knowing Jesus eventually became one of the boldest proclaimers of Christ in the early church. Think about Moses. He made mistakes. David made mistakes. Abraham made mistakes. And yet God continued working in their lives.

 Psalm 37:23–24 says:

 “The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand.”

Notice that Scripture doesn’t say the righteous person will never fall. It tells us what happens when he does. God is still there. That means falling isn’t necessarily the end of your journey. Sometimes it’s part of the journey. Don’t waste your failure

Now, here’s where we have some responsibility. If you’re going to fail, don’t waste the failure. Learn something from it. Ask yourself:

What went wrong?

What could I have done differently?

What did I overlook?

What warning signs did I ignore?

What did this experience teach me about myself?

What did it teach me about other people?

And what will I do differently the next time?

Because there’s a difference between experiencing failure and learning from failure. Failure by itself doesn’t automatically make us wiser. Reflection does. You can make the same mistake ten times and learn nothing if you never stop to examine what happened.

 That’s why I like this simple progression: Fall. Learn. Adjust. Grow. Repeat.

                You fall – you acknowledge what happened.

                You learn – you identify the lesson.

                You adjust – you change something.

                You grow – you become wiser and stronger.

                And then you keep moving.

Yesterday was the lesson; today is the opportunity

 This connects with something I say often: Be better today than you were yesterday. Yesterday may not have gone the way you wanted it to go.

Maybe yesterday you said something you shouldn’t have said.

                Maybe yesterday you missed an opportunity.

                Maybe yesterday you lost your temper.

                Maybe yesterday you procrastinated.

                Maybe yesterday you weren’t as disciplined as you needed to be.

 Okay.

                Yesterday has already taught its lesson.

                Today gives you an opportunity to apply it.

 And that’s one of the beautiful things about waking up this morning. You have another opportunity. Another chance to get right today some of the things you got wrong yesterday.

Lamentations 3:22–23 reminds us: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”