Failing Forward

“My flesh and my heart fail;

But God is the strength of my heart

and my portion forever.”

Psalm 73:26

“It’s the last minute of the Super Bowl, and we’re down by six! The quarterback comes up to the line…” Every schoolboy since the mid-60’s has chanted those words. He takes the snap from an imaginary center, fades back, and launches a long bomb to the receiver in the end zone. And it’s caught, miraculously, inconceivably, unbelievably! “And the crowd goes wild!” he shouts. “There’s never been a comeback like this one! What a game! What a quarterback!”

That little drama has been played out in backyards, schoolyards, and playgrounds for years, and always with the same outcome. The quarterback is the hero. Success has been achieved against all odds. And, when it is all done, the only bittersweet taste in the mouth of the actor is that it’s not real, not yet. But, maybe, someday, it will be… just believe and hope.

AP Photo/David Goldman

For Russell Wilson, that dream started to come true last Sunday night. It was the last few minutes of the Super Bowl, and his team was within one touchdown of taking the lead. He had led his team to within a yard of that touchdown, and then he took the snap and faded back to make a pass. And then… and then he threw an interception, and lost the game.

There it was. Every boy’s dream turned into a nightmare reality. He had failed.

As I watched the game end, I wondered what it would be like to be in Wilson’s shoes. This must have felt, in some ways, an ultimate failure. There was no way to take it back. The loss was permanent, and it could not be remedied by a win another day. The annals of football history would always record that the Patriots had won the 49^th Super Bowl after Wilson threw an interception in the final minutes. He would always be remembered as the one who lost the championship game. That’s tough. I felt for him.

Failure isn’t something reserved for superstar quarterbacks, of course. We have all experienced failure at one point or another. And some failures are really intense and bring permanent results. Some failures cannot be fixed. Sometimes relationships cannot be renewed. Sometimes losses cannot be recovered. Sometimes reputations cannot be restored.

What are we Christians to do when we fail in these big, spectacular ways? How are we to cope?

Here are three suggestions for how we can cope with big failures and how we can keep from letting them determine the course of our future lives:

• Accept the Truth

One of the hardest things to do when we fail is to admit that we have failed. The reality of failure threatens the core of our self-esteem, and our minds go to great lengths to deny it. We may try to redefine the term “failure.” (“It wasn’t really a failure.”) Or we might try to redefine the event. (“It would have been a failure if this other thing had happened, but it didn’t, so it wasn’t a failure.”) Or we may try to lay the blame on another person. (“It wasn’t my failure, it was his or her failure. It just looks like it was mine.”)

The failures that are most troubling are moral, and these prove the hardest for us Christians to accept. They arouse pangs of conscience as we sense that we have fallen short of God’s standards. We stand convicted by both our conscience our God’s Word.

In these failings, it is all the more essential that we recognize and accept the truth. It will do no good to deny the truth. We have transgressed God’s moral law, and it is only as we confess our sin that we realize renewed fellowship with Him. The beauty of confession – the act of “speaking the same thing as God does” about an action or attitude – is that it bears psychological fruit as well as spiritual renewal. It permits the confessor to embrace the past as it is, to accept it without attempting to reconstruct it, and it allows the confessor to move on, having left the failure fully in the past.

For the Christian, confession of the truth is an expression of a full judicial absolution that has been granted in the past, is present in the future, and is certain in the future. Because of the act of justification wrought through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, the believer gains the restoration of fellowship with the Father through confession. He can move on in both temporal comfort and in the certainty of eternal glory.

• Adopt an Eternal Perspective

These thoughts lead us to the next suggestion. When we fail (thinking here particularly of moral failures), we must adopt an eternal perspective. This means that we need to recognize that our failure has occurred within the sphere of God’s gracious sovereignty, and His grace is magnified all the more as that failure has become irrevocably part of our testimony. As the record of one’s past can never be altered, so now this failure will always be recorded – for the glory of God!

This is not to suggest, of course, that God is responsible for our failure. It is only to assert and affirm the theological truth that where sin is discovered in the believer, God’s grace is demonstrated supreme. His grace and mercy covers all. And in this He is and will be glorified! What is most amazing is not that we sinful humans fail morally, but that God’s grace in Christ Jesus is sufficient to cover the greatest failings.

Remembering these truths, even in the midst of confession, is a source of continual strength and joy. Even as we come to Him with contrite and humble spirits, we can affirm that “we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Our failures, no matter what they are, are not the end. Our end as believers is ultimate victory, not ultimate failure!

• Act with Confidence

And these thoughts lead us to a final suggestion. As we confess our failures and adopt an eternal perspective, we are free to act, once again, with confidence. We are freed to consider the past as just that, the past, and to redirect our attentions to God and His commission. We are liberated to realign ourselves with theological truth, realizing that God has not called us to be immobilized by memories of failure. He has called us to set our sights fully on Him and to move forward with confidence in the making of disciples. So we can, and must, put our failings behind and push forward – for His glory.

As I consider this idea of failure, I am reminded of Peter’s great failing. He had vowed to stand beside Jesus and defend Him, even at the cost of his very life. But when the moment of truth came, Peter failed, and he fled as coward. Three times he denied even knowing Him. Failure. And there is no way to erase this from history. It is how it happened, and it will always be a part of Peter’s history.

But that is not the end of Peter’s story. Rather, he wept and suffered, but Jesus restored Him. And more than that, He used him to preach the first sermon of the Church age and to usher on that day three thousand souls into the Church. Wow. And that was just the beginning. Peter was greatly used by God and, ultimately, gave his life gloriously as a witness (martyr) to the Savior. This is the power of God’s grace!

Russell Wilson’s failure was not a moral one. I just want to make that really clear. But, still, he has, in its aftermath, followed these three paths. Since Sunday, he has publicly accepted the truth, stating that the play call and the interception was his fault.  He has also adopted an eternal perspective. He is a believer, and following the game he tweeted this comment: “I will love You, O LORD, my strength. (Psalms 18:1 NKJV).” That is an eternal perspective! And then, he has decided to act with confidence. After the game, he also tweeted this: “Thank You God for the opportunity. We’ll be back… I will never waiver on who He has called me to be…” And that’s acting with confidence!

I hope these thoughts are helpful for you in your life as your press forward. May God grant you the grace, no matter what the occasion is, to accept the truth, adopt an eternal perspective, and act with confidence!

“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us,

and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”

Hebrews 12:1-2

-- Christian Pilet