Our society wants to label every action as either success or failure, but God has a third label, "growth." If I were to tell you to hold my baby daughter who is only a few months old and then I call out to her and say, "walk to daddy" most of you would expect that little girl to fall a number of times on her way. Then if I asked you if her walking a success or a failure, you wouldn't really be able to label it as either. She didn't complete the task of walking across the room because she fell several times, but she didn't fail either, she tried, because she is still growing. She will continue to try and she will fall several times as she tries but one day she will try and not fall.
In our earthly walk are continuously in the process of trying to walk out the vision God has called us to. Often we will falter and make mistakes, but God wants us to pick ourselves up and try again. We learn from our mistakes and we are growing both spiritually, physically and emotionally.
In 2010, I fell a lot in my walk, I made a lot of mistakes, I made investments that didn't work out, I took risks in the stock market that didn't pay off and I made a number of poor choices. The enemy would love for me to label these events as "failures" so I would get stuck on the missteps and not try again.
However, in 2011, I plan to not dwell on the mistakes of my past but instead I plan to pick myself up and look forward, knowing that I'm am growing, that I am learning and I will never give up!
So I gave a gift to myself this New Year's Day, the book, "Never Give Up! relentless Determination to Overcome Life's Challenges" by Joyce Meyers. I have yet to read it, but here is a small excerpt:
"Some of the most successful people in history failed and, instead of being discouraged, refused to give up. For example, consider the following:
- Henry Ford, who invested the automobile, went broke five times before he succeeded in business.
- The great dancer and movie star Fred Astaire took a screen test at MGM studios in 1933. A studio memo reported he was slightly bald, could not act, and could dance a little.
- The family of Louisa May Alcott, the great author who wrote the popular book 'Little Women', thought she shold abandon the idea of being a writer and become a seamstress instead.
- A newspaper fired Walt Disney for lack of ideas, and he went bankrupt several times before building Disneyland.
- Enrico Caruso's parents believed a voice teacher who said he hand no future in music - he simply could not sing at all. He did not believe the teacher and became one of the most famous opera singers in the world.
- Theodore Roosevelt suffered the deaths of both his mother and his wife on the same day in 1884 before he became a war hero and a very effective president of the United States.
- John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was often asked to not return to churches after preaching in them once. When he preached on the streets, townspeople kicked him out. When he preached in a meadow, people turned a bull loose on him. But later, because he refused to give up, he preached in a pasture and ten thousand people came to hear him.
