Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

No one wins the great contest who has not won many seemingly insignificant ones first.

Jay E. Adams in A Thirst for Wholeness: How to Gain Wisdom from the Book of James

Failing Up

Quite some time ago I saw a little video on Facebook wherein the actor Will Smith talked about "failing up." He spoke of using our failures to grow instead of being defeated by them. It was very good and encouraging, because...who doesn't fail?!

Some of us fail more awesomely than others...more publicly, more consequentially, closer to irretrievably, more hurtfully, more expensively...whatever, but all of us fail at some level. After all, we are humans.

Sunday's sermon passage was Acts 9:36-42 where Peter was used to raise Dorcas (Tabitha) from the dead. Though it was not the particular point of the sermon, this thought struck me:

Peter had been an awesome failure (and would fail again), but he had the faith in God's power to forgive and restore His repentant children so that he was able to ask God to raise her and commanded her to rise.

Once we failures get our eyes off our failings and onto God's power, love, forgiveness, ultimate plan we can go on to do great things for Him. 

Or even ordinary, everyday duties. 

Or love others though we may not feel lovely ourselves. 

Or stand for what is right though we have blown it.

Because we have a Savior who forgives us and has a plan for us.

As Steven Curtis Chapman words it:

We're all broken

We're all broken
And we all need a Savior
Broken
We're all broken
And we all need a Savior