Failure ultimately means when you quit trying. You may fail a test/assignment but that doesn't mean you failed the grade. Giving up and failing the grade would mean being a failure.Why do people meet up with failure? That brings us to this week's quote...
The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those, which fail. ~ Napoleon Hill
Sometimes there is a fine line between "persistence" and "stubborn." I can have a difficult time unscrewing a screw and I may need to be persistent in doing so. However, there are other times when I need to get a different tool or, if it's been stripped, just drill it out.
There is a guy in my family that has tended to use the "hit it harder" method when things don't go well. It has led to things breaking. As funny as it appears I know there is a lot of pent up frustration to cause the harder hits to come!
It is in those times we must "create new plans" and go from there.
For those of you involved with churches, I think churches can fall victim of this philosophy. They use methodologies that are not working anymore, but continue with "persistence" (in their mind) that really is being stubborn about "this has to work." Just because it worked years ago, doesn't mean it does anymore.
May we back up to try something else rather than continually walking in to the wall at the dead end of a labyrinth.
May we be persistent in trying new things, when others don't seem to work, and keep from failing by not being too stubborn with the "hopes" of something working.
1 comment:
"The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those, which fail." ~ Napoleon Hill
Thanks for the insights on failure, Jarrod. I think sometimes God permits us to do a face plant so we can come back to Him and ask Him how we can go about things differently.
I'm a writer and almost all of my pieces began with some area where I got stuck - e.g., rejection, fear, forgiveness, lack of trust. When I prayed for a Godly perspective, I saw that I needed to go back and process things through the eyes of Christ. For example, what I initially perceived as rejection might be interaction with someone who's struggling with self-unacceptance, and needs God's touch through my prayers.
I've no longer come to view failures as failures. Missed opportunities are often God-given directives to go down a different path - with a different team He's hand-picked for such a time as this.
I don't like to blow it, but God seems to have a rather broad sense of humor with the outcome of some things we do.
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