Failure in Christian preaching is often portrayed not as an end but as a necessary step toward growth, learning, and ultimate success in God's plan. Illustrations use images like stepping-stones, setbacks, and repeated trials to show how grace and perseverance transform failure into spiritual achievement (Philippians 3:13-14; 2 Corinthians 12:9).
Failure can lead to unexpected great achievements beyond original intentions.
Christopher Columbus was obsessed with the idea that he could get to the East by traveling west, but by sailing west he never did reach India. He failed, but changed the course of history by discovering America, a great achievement. If you set out to do something great enough, what you do incidentally may be of more significance than that which is accomplished on purpose by someone else.
Early failure does not prevent later success in God’s plan for life.
Phillips Brooks became a teacher in Boston Latin School, a position for which he seemed preeminently qualified. He lasted only a few months. His headmaster commented that Phillips "had in him no single element of a successful school teacher" and set Phillips packing with the conclusion that he had never known a man who failed as a schoolmaster to succeed in any other occupation. He had failed at the age of 20. Phillips Brooks overcame that failure, however, to become one of the finest pulpiteers in all of American history. No failure need be final.
Failure can motivate new levels of achievement and purpose beyond initial setbacks.
Frank Laubach learned to live above his failure. At 45, missionary Frank Laubach was a theological seminary professor in the Philippines. He was next in line for president of the seminary. However, the board selected someone else. Laubach took off for the hills to sulk. He was angry about the unfairness of life and God's seeming lack of justice. He was a failure in his own eyes. Was that the end of his story? Not on your life. Frank developed in his solitude a technique for teaching hundreds of millions of people throughout the world to read for the first time. He became the father of the modern literacy movement. A failure, Frank Laubach learned to live above that failure, and on that new level, he found how to achieve excellence.
Failure is a necessary step toward success and learning, not a reason for pride or quitting.
Thomas A. Edison recorded 1,093 patents. Most of these inventions were impractical or unmarketable. They were failures. But a man who invented the phonograph, the mimeograph, and the electric light bulb could afford a lot of failures. He was so inept in business matters that he lost control of the profitable companies that he founded, and yet in the depths of the depression, he died with an estate of $2,000,000. Edison was a successful failure. It is obvious that you learn as you fail. You also grow as you fail, but you must dare to fail. If you can fail enough, you will learn a lot; but if you are too proud to fail, then you will not enjoy success.
Repeated failures can lead to eventual success and fulfillment of God's purpose.
Abraham Lincoln was considered by many Americans as a most successful president. It was strange that he was a man marked for failure, a man suffering from melancholia, who endured long periods of depression throughout his life. He could barely see out of one eye. He had frequent nervous attacks, severe headaches, indigestion and nausea. He had a couch placed near his desk in the White House so he could quickly lie down when one of his spells came over him. When Lincoln was 10 years old he was kicked in the head by a horse and experts now believe that the skull was severely fractured, leaving him with lifelong problems. When he came to deliver the now famous address at Gettysburg, he was coming down with smallpox. Lincoln failed in business in 1831, was defeated for the legislature in 1832. The next year he suffered another business defeat and in 1836 had a nervous breakdown. He failed to be elected speaker in 1838, was defeated for elector in 1840, and for Congress in 1843, as well as in 1848. Lincoln failed to be elected to the Senate in 1855, and was defeated for the Vice Presidency in 1856 and for the Senate in 1858. However, being elected President in 1860, he could afford all those failures. Abraham Lincoln was truly a successful failure. Some people are slow starters and may discover God's purpose late in life. Moses was 80 years old when he began his life's work. All that time God was preparing him to do one thing-lead the Hebrews out of Egypt. It could be that you are living to accomplish only one great task for God, and that all the rest of your life is merely preparation for that great heroic responsibility.
Many great leaders failed repeatedly but succeeded by persevering and learning from failure.
When the great Polish pianist, Ignace Paderewski, first chose to study the piano, his music teacher told him his hands were much too small to master the keyboard. When the great Italian tenor, Enrico Caruso, first applied for instruction, the teacher told him his voice sounded like the wind whistling through the window. When the great statesman of Victorian England, Benjamin Disraeli, attempted to speak in Parliament for the first time, members hissed him into silence and laughed when he said, "Though I sit down now, the time will come when you will hear of me." Henry Ford forgot to put a reverse gear in his first car. Albert Einstein failed his university entrance exams at his first attempt. Thomas Edison spent $2,000,000 on an invention which proved to be of little value. Very little comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are fingerprints on the road to achievement. Abraham Lincoln's life could demonstrate that the only time you do not fail is the last time you try something and it works. We can "fail forward" toward success. Who Has Not Failed? The Apostle Paul failed; Peter failed; every one of the twelve apostles failed. David, Israel's greatest king, "a man after God's own heart," failed. Moses, giant among the Israelites, giver of the law, deliverer of his people, failed. Jacob, father of Israel, failed; Isaac, son of promise, failed. Abraham, progenitor of Israel, father of the faithful, prototype of those who are righteous through faith, failed. Even our first parents, in their human perfection, failed. Who has not failed? It is not failing that is the problem; it is what one does after he has failed. To take failure as final is to be a failure. To see in failure the school of the Spirit is to let failure contribute to one's growth in Christ.
Setbacks are part of progress; success comes from learning and pressing on despite failures.
Booker T. Washington said, "Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." By taking two steps forward and one step back, we still continually move closer to the goal. A man who makes no mistakes is one who does nothing. Failure, disappointments, and setbacks are a part of life. We must learn not to identify with our failures. There are many, many examples of people who overcame backward steps. Abraham Lincoln ran for political office seven times and was defeated each time. Bobby Kennedy failed third grade and could not even take care of his own paper route. Babe Ruth struck out more times than any other baseball player. Ed Gibson, one of the astronauts on the Skylab III mission, failed first and fourth grades. Learn from your mistakes, but identify with your success. Press on, confident in your own ability to succeed, backed by the power of God. Never forget that people who accomplish great things believe they can do it. When All Else Fails, Read the Instructions We are so good at doing things our own way. Then, when they do not work out, we turn to God and say, "Help! Now what do I do?" We are so foolish, for if we had read His instructions in the first place, we wouldn't have had the problem in the second place. "Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee." That's a powerful thought!
The futile quest for the philosopher's stone illustrates the failure of worldly pursuits.
Fuller relates, that "one Thomas Charnock, in pursuance of the philosopher's stone, which so many do touch, few catch, and none keep, met a very sad disaster. Once, when he was on the point of completing the grand operation, his work unhappily fell into the fire." "This," says M. Disraeli, "is a misfortune which I observe has happened to all alchemists."
A gifted man’s life spiraled through failure before finding purpose in writing.
An illustration is furnished in the history of Combe, the unhappy author of "Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque." "We find," says a reviewer in "The Companion to the Library," "this improvident man, and all within a few years, figuring as a boy at Eton; a scholar at Oxford; a student in the Temple, with a very handsome independent fortune; a barrister pleading with success; a man of fashion intimately associating with lords and ladies, and calling himself (from his courtly dress and splendid liveries) 'the Duke;' and then an outcast spendthrift; a private soldier; a novice in a French monastery, playing the monk to get his bread for the time being; a strolling player; a gentleman's servant; and a waiter at an inn at Swansea. It was after all these metamorphoses, that he turned himself into an author. His last scene of all was the King's Bench; there he wrote 'Syntax' and some other works; and there he died, after an imprisonment (for debt) of twenty years."
Ambitious plans often contrast sharply with the reality of failure and loss.
Bonaparte, referring to the siege of Acre, says: "I see that this paltry town has cost me many men, and occupies much time; but things have gone too far not to risk a last effort. If we succeed, it is to be hoped we shalfind in that place the treasures of the pasha, and arms for three hundred thousand men. I will raise and arm the whole of Syria, which is already greatly exasperated by the cruelty of Djezzar, for whose fall you have seen the people supplicate Heaven at every assault. I advance upon Damascus and Aleppo; I recruit my army by marching into every country where discontent prevails; I announce to the people the abolition of slavery, and of the tyrannical government of the pashas; I arrive at Constantinople with armed masses; I overturn the dominion of the Mussulman; I found in the East a new and mighty empire, which shall fix my position with posterity; and perhaps I return to Paris by Adrianople or Vienna, having annihilated the house of Austria." What a wide difference between what he then anticipated and what he subsequently experienced!
A Sunday school boy falls into sin and crime due to bad company and loses his way.
A poor boy, who had been educated in the Stockport Sunday school, England, conducted himself so well, and made such great proficiency in learning, that he was appointed teacher of one of the junior classes. About this time his father died, and his mother, reduced to indigent circumstances, sent him to one very hearts to live unto the Lord, and their conduct affords proofs of the sincerity of their professions; thus for example, Esquimaux sisters, who have no boat of their own, venture across bays some miles in breadth, sitting behind their husbands, on their narrow kajacks, in order to be present at the holy sacrament, though at the peril of their lives." What a lesson is this for those who live near, and make any trifling thing an excuse!
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