Success and Failure

Failure is a hard thing to handle.  Dreams crushed, plans scuttled, hopes dashed; not to mention the personal embarrasment of setting out to accomlish something that you were not able to complete.  Jesus even warns of this in a spiritual context relating tower building to cross carrying: "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower.  Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?  For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, 'This person began to build and wasn't able to finish'" (Luke 14:28-30).

Yes, failure is difficult to deal with.  But success can be just as difficult.  Have you ever known someone who got a big promotion that came with an equally big head?  Before he became a "big man," he was a good Joe and afterwards became a big jerk.  Ever hear of a lottery winner raking in millions of dollars only to be raked over the coals by divorce lawyers, IRS agents and collection agencies?  It almost seems that there is not enough air at the top for some people to maintain their sense and sensibilities.

I don't know which is worse - to succeed at failing or fail at succeeding.  Both can be disasterous.  Both can lead to your undoing.  But neither have to be.  One can fail in a business attempt, assess what went wrong and then strike out again without striking out.  Many very successful businessmen and women have a laundry list of failed attempts before making the big time.  Successful politicians often lose before winning.  Inventors may discover dozens of ways it doesn't work before discoverring the key to a successful invention (Edison said it took 10,000 attempts to successfully light up an incandescent bulb).  Failure can be a precursor to success if we allow ourselves to embrace it and learn from it.  If we can "humble ourselves before God, he will lift us up" (Js 4:10).

Success can spoil us or even ruin us completely.  As Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corruupt, and absolute power corrupts absoloutely.  Great men are almost always bad men."  Wow!  It doesn't sond good for the rich and powerful, and it isn't easy.  Jesus warned, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" (Matt 19:24).  Difficult to the degree of impossible apart from God for "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (v. 26).  God can use the rich like Abraham, the powerful like Moses and the educated like Paul; who all understood what they had came from God and was to be used for His glory.

If we devote our wealth, our power our intellect to God, he will use us in kingdom work.  We will be successful instruments in His hands while not becoming inflated in our minds.  It is the knowledge that everything comes from the Lord and ought to be used in His service that keeps us from failing beyond recovery or succeeding beyond redemption.  Jus' Say'n.