139 Sermon Illustrations on Failure

How to relate to new or struggling believers. Paul's letter to the

Galatians presents a model of integration for new and older believers.

1. Recognize equality.

2. Guard against exclusivity.

3. Embrace the past.

4. Understand equal potential for failure.

5. Carry each other's burdens.

#3177

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Six valuable lessons you can learn from defeat.

1. Failure points out our weaknesses and our need for God.

2. Failure preaches powerful sermons.

3. Failure enables us to help others.

4. Failure promotes tolerance of others.

5. Failure places in us a desire to succeed.

6. Failure moves us closer to the place God wants us.

Our failures don't have to destroy us. We can redeem them. God does not

reject us when we fall. What we let failure teach us will ultimately

determine how much God can use us.

#3337

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By limiting us, God creates room in which to work. Nancy Alford was on top of world, then was operated on for cancer and developed chronic fatigue syndrome.

1. The power principle.

The weaker we are, the more powerful God becomes.

2. The provision.

3. Prayer and praise.

In prayer we don't seek to change God's mind, but to bring our heart to accept God's will.

4. Is it fair?

God calls us to live hemmed-in lives.

THE QUESTION: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

Robert Schuller

Religious leader

Cited in BITS & PIECES

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One of the key characteristics of successful people is how they view failure. Successful people rarely see failure as fatal; they see it as feedback. When they don't get the desired result, they learn from the experience and try, try, again.

The most successful authors, inventors, actors, etc., have developed the ability to deal with massive amounts of rejection. High achievers rarely think of failure as an end in itself. Instead, they believe in delayed success. A loser says, "I can't do it," while a winner says, "I can't do it yet."

Rob Gilbert

Editor, Bits & Pieces

Cited in More of...the Best of BITS & PIECES

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Henry David Wadsworth Longfellow :

"Nor deem the irrevocable past

As wholly wasted, wholly vain

If rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain."

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Vince was a failure. He failed first in love. Sent from his native Holland to work in a London art gallery, he experienced a very unhappy love affair. He would never marry. Vince then experienced a succession of career failures. After transferring to Paris, he was fired from the gallery for his obsessive religious views. The son of a Calvinist clergyman, he tried to enter a seminary, but was rejected. He then served as a "lay-minister" in a Belgian mining town, but despite great zeal for the work, he was judged unsuitable and dismissed. Failing in the ministry, Vince turned to art, studying and painting for the next ten years. He returned to Paris to work among the Impressionists. There he met Toulouse-Lautrec, who advised him to move to the south of France where the bright atmosphere might lift his spirits. For two years Vince worked at

Aries, painting a large number of extremely colorful works. Among them was a still-life of brilliant yellow sunflowers in a large orange pot. But Vince sensed a growing darkness within. He argued with his roommate, Gauguin, first trying to kill him and then turning a knife on himself and cutting off a part of his own ear. Fearing his own emotional deterioration, Vince moved to the asylum at Saint-Remy. He continued to work during lucid spells, painting simple, child-like views of the streets, fields, and the starry night sky. That year one of Vince's paintings sold at an exhibition in Brussels, the only painting he ever sold. A few months later, on July 27, 1890, overwhelmed with debt and drowning in despair, Vince shot himself to death at the age of thirty-seven. Vince was a failure in romance, in church work, and in his life's work as a painter. Or so

he thought. Recently, in one of art-history's saddest ironies, his painting, "The Sunflowers," sold at Christie's Auction House in London for the incredible price of $39,921,750-three times the previous record for any work of art! Vincent Van Gogh had become, commercially speaking, the greatest artistic success of all time. Isn't there a lesson here for the rest of us who so often account ourselves "failures"' and count ourselves out? The values of this world are always inverted and excessive. Van Gogh's work was great, even while unknown and ignored.

NO EXCUSE, PASTOR: DEDICATED TO THE FINE PASTORS OF OUR WORLD!

There are many reasons why God would not want you, but don't worry. You're

in good company!

- Moses stuttered.

-- David's armor didn't fit.

--- John Mark was rejected by Paul.

---- Hosea's wife was a prostitute.

----- Amos' only training was in the school of fig-tree pruning.

------ Jacob was a liar.

------- David had an affair.

-------- Solomon was too rich.

--------- Abraham was too old.

---------- David was too young.

----------- Timothy had ulcers.

------------ Peter was afraid of death.

------------- Lazarus was dead.

-------------- John was self-righteous.

--------------- Jesus was too poor.

-------------- Naomi was a widow.

------------- Paul was a murderer. So was Moses.

------------ Jonah ran from God.

----------- Miriam was a gossip.

---------- Gideon and Thomas both doubted.

--------- Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal.

-------- Elijah was burned out.

------- John the Baptist was a loudmouth.

------ Martha was a worrywart.

----- Mary was lazy.

---- Samson had long hair.

--- Noah got drunk.

-- Did I mention that Moses had a short fuse?

- So did Peter, Paul--well, lots of folks did.

But God doesn't require a job interview. He doesn't hire and fire like most

bosses, because He's more our Dad than our boss. He doesn't look at

financial gain or loss. He's neither prejudiced nor partial, judging,

grudging, sassy, nor brassy, not deaf to our cry, nor blind to our need.

Satan says, "You're not worthy."

Jesus says, "So what? I AM."

Satan looks back and sees our mistakes. God looks back and sees the Cross.

Sure--there are lots of reasons why God shouldn't want us. But if we are in

love with Him, if we hunger for Him more than our next breath, He'll use us

in spite of who we are, where we've been, or what we look like.

--Source Unknown.

[similar to #369]

In "Chicken Soup For the Soul", the story is told of a man named Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch in San Ysidro. In telling about his life, he says, "It all goes back to a story about a young man who was the son of an itinerant horse trainer who would go from stable to stable, race track to race track, farm to farm and ranch to ranch, training horses. As a result, the boy's high school career was continually interrupted. When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up.

"That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal of someday owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great detail and he even drew a diagram of a 200-acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000-square-foot house that would sit on a 200-acre dream ranch.

"He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F with a note that read, `See me after class.'

"The boy with the dream went to see the teacher after class and asked, `Why did I receive an F?'

"The teacher said, `This is an unrealistic dream for a young boy like you. You have no money. You come from an itinerant family. You have no resources. Owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for the original breeding stock and later you'll have to pay large stud fees. There's no way you could ever do it.' Then the teacher added, `If you will rewrite this paper with a more realistic goal, I will reconsider your grade.'

"The boy went home and thought about it long and hard. He asked his father what he should do. His father said, `Look, son, you have to make up your own mind on this. However, I think it is a very important decision for you.'

"Finally, after sitting with it for a week, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at all. He stated, `You can keep the F and I'll keep my dream.' '"

Monty Roberts now owns a 4,000-square-foot house in the middle of a 200-acre horse ranch. Oh, and he still has that school paper framed over the fireplace. He didn't allow his teacher to crush his dream.

Two brothers were convicted of stealing sheep. For their crime they were each branded on the forehead with the letters "ST," for "sheep thief."

One brother immediately ran away from the area and attempted to build a new life in another country. Even there, people asked him about the "ST" burned into his forehead. He continued his wanderings until, finally, unable to bear the burden, he committed suicide.

The other brother took a different approach. He said to himself, "I can't run away from the fact that I stole sheep. But I can stay here and win back my self-respect and the respect of my neighbours." The years passed and he built a reputation for integrity.

One day a stranger saw the brother, now an old man, with the letters "ST" branded on his forehead. He asked a resident of the town what the letters stood for. The townsman replied, "It happened a long time ago. I've forgotten the particulars, but I think the letters are an abbreviation for Saint."

"The worst bankrupt in the world is the man who has lost his enthusiasm."

- H. W. Arnold

- _Instant Quotation Dictionary_, p. 118.

For more than 20 years Robert Frost was a failure. He often said that during this time he was one of the very few persons who knew he was a poet. At his death, the world mourned his passing, and today he towers as one of America's greatest verse writers. His poems have been published in 22 languages, with his American edition alone selling over a record million copies. He was a 4-time winner of the coveted Pulitzer Prize for poetry and had more honorary degrees thrust upon him than probably any other man of letters.

Robert Frost was 39 before he ever sold a volume of poetry. He had been writing for 20 years and received endless rejection slips. However, his perseverance paid off and the world is wiser and richer

for it.

What is the answer to

spiritual depression? A few years ago I was in Japuir,

India and visited a carpet weaving house. They employed young boys to

weave because their small hands could make smaller knots and thus make the

carpet more valuable. I asked what happens if a boy made a mistake as

children will from time to time. The answer I received was that if he was a good

weaver he would weave the mistake into the carpet pattern, making it no less

beautiful but only a greater challenge. I think this was the attitude the saints

took toward spiritual depression. They wove it into the pattern of their

life, making it no less beautiful but only a greater challenge. Perhaps,

this is what we should do. Dr. Wayne Leaver

"To err is human, but when the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, you're overdoing it."

- Josh Jenkins

- _Instant Quotation Dictionary_, p. 119.

One of the things that impresses me is that when Abraham

Lincoln went off to the Black Hawk War he was a captain and,

through no fault of his own, when he returned he was a private.

That brought an end to his military career.

Then his little shop in a country village "winked out" as he used

to say, marking his failure as a businessman. As a lawyer in

Springfield, Illinois, he was too impractical, too unpolished,

too temperamental to be a success.

Turning to politics he was defeated in his campaign for the

legislature, defeated in his first attempt to be nominated for

Congress, defeated in his application to be Commissioner of the

General Land Office, defeated in the Senatorial election of 1854,

defeated in his aspirations for the Vice Presidency in 1856, defeated

again in the Senatorial election of 1858.

Then in 1861, over 100 years ago, found him in the White House as

President of the United states. How did Lincoln interpret this

strange succession of failures and frustrations which finally

culminated in terrific personal victory? He said, "That the Almighty

directly intervenes in human affairs is one of the plainest statements

in the Bible. I have had so many evidences of His direction, so many

instances when I have been controlled by some other power than my own

will that I have no doubt that this power comes from above."

God knows what is good for us better than we ourselves. Let us not

make the mistake of judging God's overall plan for our lives by that

portion which happened to be revealed today. God has all eternity in

which to bring His plans to fulfillment for our lives. Think not in

terms of today, but in terms of eternity. After all, that's where

we'll spend most of our life. --William Summerour

Failure is never pleasant. It certainly isn't enjoyable to lose a job, see a relationship falter, or fail a test. But the immediate disappointment we feel when we face defeat can be turned into the joy of success if we take the right attitude.

Thomas Edison was busy working in his laboratory at 2 o'clock one morning when an assistant came into the room and noticed that the inventor was smiling broadly. "Have you solved the problem?" he asked. "No," replied Edison, "that experiment didn't work at all. Now I can start over again."

Edison could have such a confident attitude because he knew that the road to success is often paved with disappointments that serve to extend the road -- not to block it. Each failure brought him a little closer to success.

On October 18, 1879, a young inventor by the name of Thomas A. Edison sat in his laboratory. He was weary from 13 months of repeated failure in his search for a filament that would stand the stress of electric current. To add to his problems, the men who had backed him financially were now refusing to put up any additional funds. Having tried every known metal in his experiment, Edison was admittedly baffled. Casually picking up a bit of lampblack, he mixed it with tar and rolled it into a thin thread. Suddenly the thought struck him, why not try a carbonized cotton fiber? For five hours he worked on the first filament, but it broke before he could remove the mold.

Two entire spools of thread were used in similar fruitless efforts. At last a perfect strand emerged, only to be ruined when he tried to place it inside a glass tube. Still Edison refused to admit defeat. He continued to work without sleep for two more days and nights. Eventually he managed to insert one of the crude carbonized threads into a vacuum-sealed bulb. "When we turned on the current," he said, "the sight we had so long desired to see finally met our eyes!" His persistence in the face of the most discouraging odds gave the world one of its greatest inventions -- the electric light!

[Suggestions for overcoming the fear of failure by a motivational speaker]

Fear of failure is one of the greatest fears people have. Fear of failure is closely related to fear of criticism and fear of rejection. Successful people overcome their fear of failure. Fear incapacitates unsuccessful people.

The Law of Feedback states: there is no failure; there is only feedback. Successful people look at mistakes as outcomes or results, not as failure. Unsuccessful people look at mistakes as permanent and personal.

Buckminster Fuller wrote, “Whatever humans have learned had to be learned as a consequence only of trial and error experience. Humans have learned only through mistakes.”

Most people self-limit themselves. Most people do not achieve a fraction of what they are capable of achieving because they are afraid to try — because they are afraid they will fail.

Take these steps to overcome your fear of failure and move yourself forward to getting the result you desire:

STEP ONE: TAKE ACTION. Bold, decisive action. Do something scary. Fear of failure immobilizes you. To overcome this fear, you must act. When you act, act boldly.

Action gives you the power to change the circumstances or the situation. You must overcome the inertia by doing something. Dr. Robert Schuller asks, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” What could you achieve? Be brave and just do it. If it doesn’t work out the way you want, then do something else. But DO SOMETHING NOW.

STEP TWO: PERSIST. Successful people just don’t give up. They keep trying different approaches to achieving their outcomes until they finally get the results they want. Unsuccessful people try one thing that doesn’t work and then give up. Often people give up when they are on the threshold of succeeding.

STEP THREE: DON’T TAKE FAILURE PERSONALLY. Failure is about behavior, outcomes, and results. Failure is not a personality characteristic. Although what you do may not give you the result you wanted, it doesn’t mean you are a failure. Because you made a mistake, doesn’t mean that you are a failure.

STEP FOUR: DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY. If what you are doing isn’t working, do something else. There is an old saying, “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.” If you’re not getting the results you want, then you must do something different. Most people stop doing anything at all, and this guarantees they won’t be successful.

STEP FIVE: DON’T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF. Hey, if nothing else, you know what doesn’t work. Failure is a judgement or evaluation of behavior. Look at failure as an event or a happening, not as a person.

STEP SIX: TREAT THE EXPERIENCE AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN. Think of failure as a learning experience. What did you learn from the experience that will help you in the future? How can you use the experience to improve yourself or your situation? Ask yourself these questions:

(1) What was the mistake?

(2) Why did it happen?

(3) How could it have been prevented?

(4) How can I do better next time?

Then use what you learned from the experience to do things differently so you get different results next time. Learn from the experience or ignore it.

STEP SEVEN: LOOK FOR POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITIES THAT RESULT FROM THE EXPERIENCE. Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, says “every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or a greater benefit.” Look for the opportunity and the benefit.

STEP EIGHT: FAIL FORWARD FAST. Tom Peters, the management guru, says that in today’s business world, companies must fail forward fast. What he means is that the way we learn is by making mistakes. So if we want to learn at a faster pace, we must make mistakes at a faster pace. The key is that you must learn from the mistakes so you make so you don’t repeat them.

Although we all make mistakes, fear of failure doesn’t have to cripple you. As self-help author Susan Jeffers says, “feel the fear and do it anyway.”

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©2002 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TERRY BRAGG•PEACEMAKERS TRAINING

Terry Bragg runs a company called Peacemakers Training in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is the author of the book 31 Days to High Self-Esteem.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #14064]

Everyone knows about Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Are you aware that R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store caught on? Henry Ford went bankrupt twice. English novelist John Creasy got 753 rejection slips before publishing 564 books. Home run hero Babe Ruth, with 714 round trippers, also struck out 1,330 times. Don't worry about failure. Worry about the chances you miss when you won't even try.

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Tom Sirotnak and Ken Walker, {Warriors }(Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995) 162

QUOTES – OVERCOMING OBSTACLES

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“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

“The history of the human race is the history of ordinary people who have overcome their fears and accomplished extraordinary things.”

-- Brian Tracy

“If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of advice for all humanity, it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high. Look it squarely in the eye, and say, ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.’”

-- Ann Landers

“Rough spots sharpen our performance. And more often than not, obstacles can be turned into advantages. You just can’t let your disappointment get in the way.”

-- Harvey Mackay

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

-- Mary Kay Ash

“I always view problems as opportunities in work clothes.”

-- Henry Kaiser

“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory.”

-- Vince Lombardi

“Difficulties exist to be surmounted.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”

-- Margaret Thatcher

“The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.”

-- Helen Keller

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

-- Helen Keller

“History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.”

-- B. C. Forbes

“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.”

-- George Bernard Shaw

“People do not lack strength; they lack will.”

-- Victor Hugo

“I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

-- Mother Teresa

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcomings, who knows the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at his best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph and who at worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows his place shall never be with those timid and cold souls who know neither victory or defeat.”

-- Theodore Roosevelt

“The new age cannot live on naturalism or on secularism. Life becomes sterile and futile without the depth and power which come from participation in eternal realities. But this new age cannot any more successfully live on religious faiths that are out of harmony with known truth, or that hang loose in the air, cut apart from the fundamental intellectual culture of the age. The hour has struck for the serious business of rediscovering the foundations, and of interpenetrating all life and thought with the truths and realities of a victorious religious faith.”

-- Rufus Jones, Christian Faith in a New Age Christian Quotation of the Day (CQOD)

“In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.”

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), poet, B&P 10/30/02

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”

-- Arnold Schwarzenegger, QFTM 11/25/02

“Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.”

-- Virginia Satir, social worker, B&P 5/23/03

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

-- Helen Keller

Quotes for Determination

“The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.”

-- Roger Bannister

“The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur.”

-- Vince Lombardi

“The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.”

-- Tommy Lasorda

“Nothing great will ever be achieved without great mean, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.”

-- Charles De Gaulle

“If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.”

-- Samuel Johnson

“What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.”

-- Alexander Graham Bell

“Nothing can resist the human will that will stake even its existence on its stated purpose.”

-- Benjamin Disraeli

“The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between the great and the insignificant, its energy – invincible determination – a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory.”

-- Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

“You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.”

-- Jimmy Carter

“A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.”

-- Robert Hughes

“Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle and a victory.”

-- Ghandi

“Bear in mind, if you are going to amount to anything, that your success does not depend upon the brilliancy and the impetuosity with which you take hold, but upon the ever lasting and sanctified buldoggedness with which you hang on after you have taken hold.”

-- Dr. A. B. Meldrum

“A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.”

-- John Christian Bovee

“The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”

-- Vince Lombardi

“The only good luck many great men ever had was being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.”

-- Channing Pollock

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it – but all that had gone before.”

-- Jacob Riis

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”

-- Michael Jordon

“What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.”

-- Alexander Graham Bell

“A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.”

-- Christian Nestell Bovée

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

-- President Calvin Coolidge

“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

-- Thomas Alva Edison

“We will either find a way or make one.”

-- Hannibal

“Decision and determination are the engineer and fireman of our train to opportunity and success.”

-- Burt Lawlor

“It’s a very funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.”

-- William Somerset Maugham

“A resolute determination is the truest wisdom.”

-- Napoléon I

“I learned about the strength you can get from a close family life. I learned to keep going, even in bad times. I learned not to despair, even when my world was falling apart. I learned that there are no free lunches. And I learned the value of hard work.”

-- Lee Iacocca

“A leader, once convinced that a particular course of action is the right one, must… be undaunted when the going gets tough.”

-- Ronald Reagan

“Fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired that you wish your opponent would crack you one on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round – remembering that the man who always fights one more round is never whipped.”

-- James Corbett

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Someone said that encouragement is simply reminding a person of the "shoulders" he's standing on, the heritage he's been given. That's what happened when a young man, the son of a star baseball player, was drafted by one of the minor league teams. As hard as he tried, his first season was disappointing, and by midseason he expected to be released any day.

The coaches were bewildered by his failure because he possessed all the characteristics of a superb athlete, but he couldn't seem to incorporate those advantages into a coordinated effort. He seemed to have become disconnected from his potential.

His future seemed darkest one day when he had already struck out his first time at bat. Then he stepped up to the batter's box again and quickly ran up two strikes. The catcher called a time-out and trotted to the pitcher's mound for a conference. While they were busy the umpire, standing behind the plate, spoke casually to the boy.

Then play resumed, the next pitch was thrown - and the young man knocked it out of the park. That was the turning point. From then on, he played the game with a new confidence and power that quickly drew the attention of the parent team, and he was called up to the majors.

On the day he was leaving for the city, one of his coaches asked him what had caused such a turnaround. The young man replied it was the encouraging remark the umpire had made that day when his baseball career had seemed doomed.

"He told me I reminded him of all the times he had stood behind my dad in the batter's box," the boy explained. "He said I was holding the bat just the way Dad had held it. And he told me, 'I can see his genes in you; you have your father's arms.' After that, whenever I swung the bat, I just imagined I was using Dad's arms instead of my own."

_________________

by Barbara Johnson (c) 1998, from Chicken Soup for the Sports Fan's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jim Tunney and Mark and Chrissy Donnelly.

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Failure

Recently there have been a number of plane crashes. You probably have noticed all the headlines that have suggested that Flying is Now Impossible, Gravity laws have changed, Planes can no longer fly! Of course we wouldn't see these foolish headlines because they aren't true. Planes crash because of human error, terrorism, weather or mechanical failure. Planes do crash occasionally. It doesn't however prevent most of us from boarding the next plane to fly to our destination. On occasion Christians crash, churches crash, church leaders crash. The reasons human error, terrorism, weather or mechanical failure. That doesn't mean that Christianity no longer works. That grace is no longer an option. That knowing Christ makes no difference in our lives. Sometime the followers of Christ blow it, crash. God however remains the same. His love and grace can change our lives.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy the other children called "Sparky," after a comic strip horse named Sparkplug. Even though the boy hated that nickname, he could never shake it.

School was difficult for Sparky. He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He flunked physics in high school. In fact, he still holds the school record for being the worst physics student in the school's history. He also flunked Latin, algebra, and English. He didn't do much better in sports. He made the school's golf team, but his poor play ended up costing his team the championship.

Throughout his youth, Sparky was a loser socially. Not that he was actively disliked by other kids - it's just that nobody paid much attention to him. He was astonished if a classmate even said hello outside of school. He never dated or even asked a girl out. He was afraid of being turned down. Sparky didn't let being a loser bother him that much; he just decided to make it through life the best he could and not worry about what other people thought of him.

Sparky did, however, have a hobby. He loved cartoons, and he liked drawing his own cartoons. No one else thought they were any good, however. When he was a senior in high school, he submitted some cartoons to the school yearbook and they were rejected. Sparky kept drawing anyway.

Sparky dreamed about being an artist for Walt Disney. After graduating from high school, he wrote a letter to Walt Disney Studios inquiring about job opportunities. He received a form letter requesting samples of his artwork. The form letter asked him to draw a funny cartoon of "a man repairing a clock by shoveling the springs and gears back inside it."

Sparky drew the cartoon and mailed it off with some of his other work to Disney studios. He waited and waited for a reply. Finally the reply came another form letter telling him that there was no job for him.

Sparky was disappointed but not surprised. He had always been a loser, and this was just one more loss. In a weird way, he thought, his life was kind of funny.

He tried telling his own life story in cartoons-a childhood full of the misadventures of a little boy loser, a chronic underachiever. This cartoon character has now become known by the whole world. The boy who failed the eighth grade, the young artist whose work was rejected not only by Walt Disney Studios but by his own high school yearbook, was Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schultz - creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip and the little boy loser whose kite never flies: Charlie Brown.

We have all experienced rejection and failure in life, but God has gifted each one of us with unique talents and abilities that enable us to make a significant contribution to the world. What are your gifts? Unless you attempt to use them, you will never discover how God prepared you to contribute. We need to be like the little boy in Scripture who offered Jesus his lunch - Jesus in turn used it to feed a multitude. (See John 6:9.)

_______________

Wayne Rice, " Hot Illustrations For Youth Talks," Zondervan, pp. 186-188.

On October 2, 1996, an Aeroperu 757 went down in the Pacific Ocean 50 miles northwest of Lima. Everyone on board was killed. Blame for the accident was laid at the feet of the Peruvian airline's ground crew. The crewmembers performed their assignments flawlessly except for one thing.

Soon after takeoff the pilot radioed the control tower the aircraft was behaving erratically, that the instruments were logically incorrect.

Since the weather was cold the pilot concluded ice had formed on the wings, causing the plane's instruments to malfunction. He decreased altitude in search of warmer air hoping the wings would de-ice. Lower and lower he flew, screaming at helpless controllers for assistance they could not provide - his voice was silenced in mid-sentence as the 757 slammed into the sea in the dark.

In preparing the craft for flight, the plane's outer body was washed with high-pressure hoses. It was standard procedure to duct-tape all sensitive instrument ports; it was also standard procedure to remove the tape following the plane's bath. They failed to do this.

All 186 people on board perished because the very instruments they depended on to keep the craft properly oriented were blocked. The five men of the ground crew were charged with wrongful death of 70 of the plane's passengers - all because someone didn't do his job.

In commenting on this tragedy, Ravi Zacharias, the evangelist, drew this parallel: such is our culture today - experts from every discipline in our society complain about our dysfunctional world, writing mountains of books and articles about the dilemma; yet the instruments needed to guide this great ship are taped over. The mouths of God's messengers are virtually taped over, the ears of the world are also being taped over.

If the mouths do not speak and the ears do not hear, the cacophony of many nations crashing will surely continue - death and hell will continue to consume their evil fruit.

Unlike the crew at the airport, not every member of society must perform perfectly in order for this craft to stay in the air. God only requires a faithful remnant, an unknown number of those who day in and day out go about the business of being faithful to Him and His commandments - God's sensitive instruments of navigation.

______________

Source/Attribution: John Gillmartin; SIEW

*

“Don’t let success go to your head or failure go to your heart.”

-- Anonymous, cited in BITS & PIECES (B&P)

“Success comes to those who know that life is first born in thought, who seek the vision before the deed, and conform the deed to the vision.”

-- B.Z. Bokser

“Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.”

-- Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant

“The greatest secret of success in life is for a person to be ready when their opportunity comes.”

-- Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881), British Prime Minister and writer, B&P

“The secret of success is constancy of purpose.”

-- Benjamin Disraeli

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

-- Thomas Edison, QFTM 5/24/03

“Try not to become a success, but rather try to become a man of value.”

-- Albert Einstein, QFTM 11/19/02

“There are no victories at bargain prices.”

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969), 34th U.S. President, B&P

“The walking of Man is falling forwards.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, QFTM 11/25/02

“Success depends on a plus condition of mind and body, on the power of work and on courage.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Success is a continuum. At one end is what we call failure; at the opposite end is success and satisfaction. Success begins with failure and ends with accomplishment. Seen this way, failure is an integral, anticipated part of the success process.”

-- R. Moshe Gans

“Three rules for success:

Number 1. Do what’s right. Be on time, be polite, and be honest; remain free from drugs;

and if you have any questions, get out your Bible.

Number 2. Do your best. Mediocrity is unacceptable when you are capable of doing better.

Number 3. Treat others as you want to be treated. Practice love and understanding.”

-- Lou Holtz, QFTM 7/28/00

“You either have to be first, best, or different.”

-- Loretta Lynn, country music singer, B&P

“Learn and grow all you can; serve and befriend all you can; enrich and inspire all you can.”

-- Pope John Paul II, Quotes From The Masters (QFTM) 11/19/02

“Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.”

-- Pat Riley, basketball coach, B&P 11/18/02

“There is no success without sacrifice. If you succeed without sacrifice it is because someone has suffered before you. If you sacrifice without success it is because someone will succeed after.”

-- Adoniram Judson, missionary, SermonCentral.com newsletter, 5/20/03

“Once a man has made a commitment to a way of life, he puts the greatest strength in the world behind him. It’s something we call heart power. Once a man has made his commitment, nothing will stop him short of success.”

-- Vince Lombardi

“Accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.”

-- General George S. Patton, QFTM 3/15/03

“When building a team, I always search first for people who love to win. If I can’t find any of those, I look for people who hate to lose.”

-- H. Ross Perot, QFTM 3/15/03

“To succeed in life one must have determination and must be prepared to suffer during the process. If one isn’t prepared to suffer during adversities, I don’t really see how he can be successful.”

-- Gary Player

“A man can lack integrity and character and prove to be a success in law, business or government. However, in the ministry a lack or decline in integrity and morality ends up in ultimate failure.”

-- Charles Swindoll

“My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose - somehow we win out.”

-- Ronald Reagan, QFTM 3/15/03

“I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through - then follow through.”

-- Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker, QFTM 5/31/03

“Success, real success, in any endeavor demands more from an individual than most people are willing to offer - not more than they are capable of offering.”

-- James Roche, cited in BITS & PIECES

“If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing, and believe in what you are doing. Yes, it’s just that simple.”

-- Will Rogers

“Men were born to succeed, not to fail.”

-- Henry David Thoreau

“Today I shall look upon every obstacle as a down payment towards my success. I will use them to strengthen me and not weaken me.”

-- R. Twerski

“Successful people have clearly defined goals and action plans. They have a specific sense of direction, and that direction is based upon their own desires - not those assigned by someone else.”

-- Dennis Waitley

“Plan purposefully. Prepare. Proceed positively. Pursue persistently.”

-- William A. Ward

“Success is an active process of accomplishments along the way.”

-- Shiela West

“You can get everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

-- Zig Ziglar, cited in More of...The Best of BITS & PIECES

“There’s nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever.”

-- Alfred Hitchcock

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.”

-- Vincent T. Lombardi, QFTM 6/5/04

“In whatever man does without God, he must fail miserably or succeed more miserably.”

-- George MacDonald, 19th century writer

“I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through – then follow through.”

-- Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker

“I realized early on that success was tied to not giving up. Most people in this business gave up and went on to other things. If you simply didn’t give up, you would outlast the people who came in on the bus with you.”

-- Harrison Ford

“Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’

-- Brian Tracy

“Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome. Not everyone can be Number 1.”

-- Arthur Ashe

“The twin killers of success are impatience and greed.”

-- Jim Rohn

“Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.”

-- Rodan of Alexandria

“Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.”

“The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. . . It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation - persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.”

-- Alexander Graham Bell (inventor)

“The first and most important step toward success is the feeling that we can succeed.”

-- Nelson Boswell

“People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don’t know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to.”

-- George Herbert Allen (football coach, executive)

“Success and Failure. . . Success and failure are usually not the result of a single event. Failure is the result of neglecting to make the call. . . to go the extra mile. . . to say, I Love You. In the same way that failure follows this string of small decisions, success comes from taking the initiative and following up. . . persisting. . . eloquently expressing the depth of your love. What simple actions could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life.”

-- Anthony Robbins

“To be successful one must make change an ongoing process. Quality is a race with no finish line.”

-- David T. Kearns

“The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

“The first quality of courage is the willingness to launch with no guarantees. The second quality of courage is the ability to endure when there is no success in sight.”

-- Brian Tracy

“The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.”

“Be willing to launch in faith, with no guarantees of success. This is the mark of personal greatness.”

-- Brian Tracy

“The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams.”

-- Og Mandino

“The softball game between members of our church and a local synagogue was tied until the bottom of the ninth inning, when our pastor hit the game winning home run. He jokingly attributed his success to the benediction he had given before the game. The following week we presented him with a trophy inscribed “Most Valuable Prayer”

-- Reader’s Digest

“Just being yourself, being who you are, is a successful rebellion.”

“Making a success of the job at hand is the best step toward the kind you want.”

-- Bernard Mannes Baruch (stock broker, public official, political advisor)

“Be sensitive to the plight of others. You have to know about the tragedies as well as the triumphs, the failures as well as the success.”

“Judge your success by Come, work for the Lord. The work is hard, the hours long and the pay is low. But the retirement benefits are out of this world.”

“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.”

-- Jim Rohn

“Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.”

-- Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993)

“The most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at the goal itself, but at some ambitious goal beyond it.”

“Success is living up to your potential. That’s all. Wake up with a smile and go after life. Don’t just show up at the game or office. Live it, enjoy it, taste it, smell it, feel it.”

-- Joe Kapp, Former football player and coach

“Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it.”

-- Elbert Hubbard

“To some people, I am kind of a Merlin who takes lots of crazy chances, but rarely makes mistakes. I’ve made some bad ones, but fortunately, the successes have come along fast enough to cover up the mistakes. When you go to bat as many times as I do, you’re bound to get a good average.”

-- Walt Disney

“To have a successful relationship I must learn to make it look like I’m giving as much as I’m getting.”

“The twin killers of success are impatience and greed.”

-- Jim Rohn

“Cutting remarks won’t carve your way to success. . .”

“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.”

-- David Bly

“The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.”

-- Napoleon Hill

“Good luck is the lazy man’s estimate of the workers success. . . and. . . Musicians who play by ear should remember people listen the same way. . .”

“Behind every successful man, stands a surprised mother-in-law.”

-- Hubert Humphrey

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.”

-- Bob Dylan

“We are never alone when we are alone with Jesus. . . and. . . Easy is the enemy of success.”

“People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success.”

-- Norman Vincent Peale

“A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success.”

-- Anonymous

“The road to success is dotted with very tempting parking places. . . . and they are patrolled by VERY unforgiving meter police. . .

-– Anonymous

“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”

-- William Feather (1889-1981)

“The ability to confront issues is really important to a successful career, maybe even a successful life.”

-- Amy Digeso

“Failure is the tuition you pay for success.”

-- Walter Brunell

“If at first you don’t succeed...skydiving is not for you.”

-- (unknown)

Fastest man on earth is an unflappable Englishman

By Adrian Croft

GERLACH, Nev. (Reuters) - Andy Green, who made history by smashing the sound barrier on land Monday, is the very model of the unflappable Englishman, not turning a hair at driving at over 700 mph.

The 35-year-old Royal Air Force fighter pilot became the first person to drive a car at supersonic speed only one day short of 50 years after American test pilot Chuck Yeager made the first supersonic flight.

"He's the greatest land speed record driver ever -- it's as simple as that," Thrust team leader Richard Noble said.

Green drove the British Thrust SuperSonic Car across Nevada's remote Black Rock Desert at 764.2 mph, or 0.7 percent above the speed of sound. The achievement defied critics who said breaking the sound barrier on land was impossible because the car would take off.

He made another supersonic run 61 minutes after the first one but failed to set the world's first supersonic world land speed record because the turnaround time was one minute more than allowed under international rules.

The breaking of the sound barrier on land, however, is expected to be recognized by the official Federation Internationale Automobiliste.

Noble, who held the land speed record of 633 mph for 14 years until Green clocked 714 mph Sept. 25, has been impressed by his colleague's ability to drive to the speeds requested by the design team.

"He drives it accurately time after time after time. He's extremely cool. It's just a brilliant job," Noble said.

Green has said that the speed of sound was the last great challenge in land speed recordbreaking. "There have been 63 official records in the last 99 years, but at the end of the day, there will only be one sound barrier," he said recently.

He became involved in the Thrust project after reading in a newspaper that Noble was looking for a driver for his new supersonic car. Chosen from among 30 candidates, he is not paid for his work.

He is also the only person ever to drive Thrust -- on test drives in England and Jordan before coming to Nevada. He is here with his girlfriend, Jayne Millington, an RAF fighter controller in charge of the car's radio communications.

Green says he is not afraid of or nervous about driving the black jet car at speeds never before reached on land.

"Should I be? People keep asking me this. I'm afraid I'm missing something," he joked.

A squadron leader who took leave from the RAF to drive Thrust SSC, Green says his holiday job is much safer than his normal duties: flying Phantom and Tornado fighter jets.

Unlike in the Royal Air Force, with Thrust there is no need to balance safety with necessity. "If there's any question of safety, we just don't run. You don't have to go over and intercept Russians over the North Sea," he said.

Born in Atherstone, Warwickshire, Green entered the RAF in 1983 after gaining a first-class degree in mathematics from Oxford University. He has served with the RAF in Britain and Germany and on peacekeeping duties over Bosnia.

A keen sportsman, he rowed for Oxford University at the Henley regatta. He runs regularly and finished the Berlin marathon in 1988 in under three hours.

^REUTERS@