Failure is a great Teacher.
In a culture where we are so saturated in the need to achieve, where are we left with when we don’t rise to the challenge? When we have the ability to be successful, but fail in the face of that… I think that what we need is something bigger than ourselves. That as we discover how incredibly we’re created - the blueprints, the mechanics, the musings - we’ve got to go even further, go even deeper, we’ve got to go there. And I think I’ll discover that it isn’t myself who gives myself a reference point to who I am. And i think we’ll discover that it isn’t ourselves that gives ourselves a reference point to who we are. We need something bigger, something more infinite.
Failure is a great teacher. And no one falls as hard as one who’s achieved something great. It comes down to how well we remember. In moments of lowly failure, can we remember what defines us? In moments of extravagant success, can we remember what defines us? At the end of the day, the answer has to be more than that success and that failure. Through what experience we have (whether that’s a lot of years of it, or just starting to keep count) we have to remember the moment where we discovered there is a God that is good, that is sovereign, that has charged us with the noble task to bring peace and shalom to the places we go. If we don’t practice remembrance of that which is the crux of how it is we go about our existence, we don’t have anything. We don’t have anything if all we can remember is how glamourous being successful was, or how devastating being a failure was. But if we remember what we learned about the Love of all loves, about God’s Love, and how it can be a centre of reference and meaning to those successes and failures… then there’s no end to the power gifted in us to bring art, peace, and beauty to those around us.
Then, maybe then, we can be the change we want to see in the world. We can live as we are. We can see things as they are. We can dream, wake up, and dream again. We can speak words with gravity. We can find peace where there is no peace. But, only. if. we. remember…
