139 Sermon Illustrations on Failure

Secret wife of Bob Dylan

The story is told for the first time -- the family he kept hidden from the world

In the fall of 1985, Columbia released Biograph, a five-record set of Dylan recordings. It was the first time a living popular music star had been given such a major retrospective.

To celebrate, Columbia hosted a party for Dylan at the Whitney Museum in New York on November 13. Carole Childs, an executive for Geffen Records, who had been dating him for three years, was his date for the evening, but she had only to open Biograph to see that she was not the only woman in his life. One of the two booklets that came with the set was liberally illustrated with photographs of Dylan with Clydie King. Childs knew about the relationship and claims it did not bother her. "Show me a fidelious [sic] guy," she says, "and I'll show you a liar."

The fact that Dylan was dating both Childs and King did not stop him picking up another woman at the party. Susan Ross was a blond, 33-year-old former road manager. Invited to the Whitney by a friend, she turned up in a five-dollar thrift-shop dress of blue lace. Almost every other woman was wearing chic black, making her feel out of place until she found herself standing next to Dylan. He asked what she thought of the party, and asked for her telephone number. Ross claims he came to her hotel three days later.

"We hung out and talked for about four hours, just necking." They did not see each other for the next few months, because Dylan was abroad, but they spoke by telephone, and when he returned to the United States they began seeing each other.

Ross says she became pregnant by Dylan, and that the pregnancy was terminated. It was the start of an often difficult relationship, she claims. Dylan was a "raging alcoholic" when they met, and reluctant to make any commitment to her.

Ross also knew Dylan was seeing other women. Indeed, he had an abundance of female admirers. Some were distinguished in their own right. Elizabeth Taylor was smitten with him. She made her feelings clear when they met backstage at a tribute concert to Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, D.C., in January, 1986.

"We were sitting in the green room and I had Liz Taylor on one side of me and Bob on the other side, and Elizabeth saw Bob and just hit on him," says guitarist Ted Perlman. "She got all giddy over him.

"Bob was wearing this flannel shirt outside his dirty jeans and he's got work boots on, continues Perlman. "He's skinny and he's grungy and his personal hygiene -- he has no hygiene. That's just the way he is ... But women don't care. He has a kind of power over them."

Despite his labyrinthine love life, Childs maintains that Dylan is, at heart, a "wonderful, basic Midwestern family guy [with] tremendous principles." Nevertheless, apparently not content with the company of Childs, King and Ross -- and whomever else he could pick up -- Dylan had recently resumed his relationship with backing singer Carolyn Dennis.

Dylan had dated Dennis on and off since she started working for him during a 1978 world tour. Dennis then married a drummer and had a family. The marriage did not last long, and she began dating Dylan again.

Singer Maria Muldaur (Midnight at the Oasis) was friendly with Dylan, Dennis and several of the other backing singers who worked with him. "I think he [dated] some of these black girls because they didn't idolize him. They were real down-to-earth and they didn't worship him," she explains. "[They are] strong women who would just say, 'cut off your bullsh--.' "

Dylan's music was not popular in the African-American community. While women from his own white middle-class background often saw him as an overawing presence, he was just another guy to African-American women, and this was refreshing to him. "These girls all tell me that they had no idea who he was," says Muldaur. "But then, of course, they get on the tour with him and they see what a big deal he was and I do believe, despite everybody's pure Christian intentions [this was in the early days of Dylan's born-again period], there was a lot of jockeying for position to see who would end up being Bob's girl."

At the age of 31, Dennis became pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter -- Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan -- at the Humana Hospital West Hills in Canoga Park, Calif., on Jan. 31, 1986. The name of the father is given on the birth certificate as Robert Dylan. The birth was one of the most closely guarded secrets of Dylan's career. Not even close friends and members of his family knew at first, and the full facts have not been revealed until now.

Dylan was a father again, 17 years after the birth of his son Jakob. Although he was insistent that the existence of a sixth Dylan child should remain secret -- seemingly to protect Desiree, as well as his own privacy -- he would do everything to make sure Desiree had a stable family life.

The first step was to marry her mother. The wedding of Dylan and Dennis took place in Los Angeles on June 4, 1986. The certificate was filed as a "confidential marriage." There was not a hint in the press. Far from ending his relationship with Childs, however, Dylan continued to date her, and provided her with a US$500,000 house in Beverly Hills.

By the end of the '80s, Dylan had dispensed with using backing singers. So his wife stayed at home with their daughter. Owing to his touring and recording commitments, Dylan rarely visited. On Aug. 7, 1990, Dennis filed for a dissolution of their four-year marriage, citing irreconcilable differences.

In May, 1991, Dylan turned 50 and found he had to face the emotional and financial cost of a second failed marriage. In June, as the first step in the process, the family home (one of more than a dozen properties he owned) was transferred to Dennis's name.

Dylan was drinking heavily, downing brandy and other liquor as if it were Coca-Cola. He also became grumpy and unreasonable with his band. "He was going through a pretty rough time himself with one thing and another," says bassist Ian Wallace. "He'd stop in the middle of songs, kind of put his hand on his hips and look at everybody in disgust."

Dylan's divorce from Dennis was not nearly as expensive as his 1977 divorce from Sara Dylan, but he is understood to have paid Dennis a multi-million-dollar settlement. Dennis declines to talk about their relationship. "Mr. Dylan is a very private person," she says, "which is why the world had such a hard time trying to find out anything about his life."

Dylan took refuge in relentless touring. By the end of 1992, he would have played 105 concerts, the second busiest year of his career. The first was 1978, following his divorce from Sara.

(Copyright) 2001 Howard Sounes Taken from Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (Grove Press, $42.50), to be published May 24; Tomorrow: Flashback -- Getting rich on Blowin' in the Wind; and just how bad was that motorcycle accident?

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!

In the Garden of Gethsemane the disciples had fallen asleep when Jesus had asked them to stay awake; they turned their heads away when he had asked them to pray and keep watch. They felt the heaviness of their eyes instead of the heaviness of the moment, though Jesus repeatedly tried to stir them. It was a day of failings. Peter emphatically denied that he would deny Christ three times before morning as Jesus had predicted, until the rooster crowed and Peter knew what he had done and wept bitterly.

What do you do with despair? What do you do when you know that you have messed up, when you know that you have missed an opportunity, when it seems that all of your shortcomings are written in large print on your forehead and there is no going back with an eraser?

It is a common human tendency to walk away from a ruined moment thoroughly defeated. But where do you go? And how long do you remain in your defeat? Are you one who throws up her hands and stops trying? Do you mentally beat yourself up? Do you carry your guilt as if paying penitence? Are you, in the words of George MacDonald, housing a conscience which does its duty so well that it makes the whole house uncomfortable?

Christian author Joni Eareckson Tada knows intimately what the face of despair looks like. Injured in a diving accident that left her paralyzed, she has often referred to her wheelchair as her “crown.” But she did not always have such a perspective. When she first became disabled, Joni explains that she was convinced she had missed God's best for her, and that God was now forced to go with some divine Plan B.

Do we, in our assailings or failings, hold a similar perspective? In the regret of a missed opportunity, the guilt of a failed moment, the despair of an irreversible situation, it is understandable that we sometimes sink into the hopeless thought that it is all over. It is easy beat ourselves up, to despairingly ponder what it means to have missed God's best, and to believe that somehow, with a frown, God must now come in and adjust His plan for our lives.

How significant, then, are Christ's words to his despairing disciples, and to those of us who have ever felt the sting of regret. To those who had fallen asleep, Jesus said, “Rise, let us be going” (Matthew 26:46). To Peter who had denied him three times, Jesus said, “Feed my lambs” (John 21:17). Jesus offers two commands, neither asking them to sit in a corner and think about what they'd done, nor asking them to carry their sense of guilt for a time before thoroughly moving on. He simply said, “Go” and asked for their obedience.

For the disciples, it was a day of failings. For God, it was the fullness of time, the moment in history when the floodgates of heaven were opened, and failed days and missed moments and broken lives were forever offered a hope that does not let us down. There are days that we can never get back, words we can't take back, and times when we have certainly failed. Yet in Christ, all is never lost. But all is gained. For in Christ we are accepted, redeemed through his blood, forgiven of our sins. In Christ we are adopted, received as children of God, loved as heirs of the promise, according to the riches of His grace, the purpose of His will. Do not despair. Go and follow.

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Copyright © 2003 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #18742]

”Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.” — Jim Rohn

“Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might know how to read, but more importantly, what’s your plan to read?” — Jim Rohn

“Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.” — Jim Rohn

“When you know what you want, and you want it bad enough, you will find a way to get it.” — Jim Rohn

“Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.” — Jim Rohn

Some actors and directors who've never won an Oscar (honorary awards don't count):

Jean Arthur

Richard Burton

Marlene Dietrich

Kirk Douglas

Greta Garbo

Cary Grant

Howard Hawks

Alfred Hitchcock

Gene Kelly

Deborah Kerr

Robert Mitchum

Peter O'Toole

Edward G. Robinson

Rosalind Russell

Barbara Stanwyck

Donald Sutherland

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The Oregonian, Copyright (c) March 24, 2003, http://www.oregonian.com/; submitted by Barbara Henry

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

Failure. Even the word sounds bad, doesn't it? That is because since the time we were just young children we were taught that failure was bad. But is that true? Is failure bad? Let's consider some things.

I like a baseball analogy. Do you know what the record is for a season batting average (That means how many times the batter successfully hit to get on base)? It is a gentleman by the name of Ted Williams and his season batting average was .411 one year. That means that out of 1000 times at bat he would get a hit 411 times. That is considered by baseball fans as one of the greatest records ever. There are players making millions of dollars who hit .280!

But what does that stat also tell us if we flip it around? It tells us that the best season any batter ever had in the major leagues was a FAILURE RATE of .589! Even the best fail on a regular basis!

What about the richest people on Wall Street? Do they fail? Of course they do. They pick the bad stocks sometimes, but they cut their loses and learn from their failure.

Did Michael Jordan miss shots? Over 50% of them!

So what about all this? What does this mean for us? The fact is, I think we can learn a lot about failure that will actually make us a great success. So here are some thoughts to help you use failure to further your future!

Failure is inevitable if you are trying for greatness. Failure is something we must accept as a part of the road we travel to success. This is a very important item and number one on the list because a lot of what stops people from pursuing success is their fear that they may fail and not reach their destination. When we embrace the fact that we will fail, and that is okay, then we have nothing to fear anymore. Instead, we keep our eyes open and pick ourselves up, adjust from the failure, and move on.

Failure is never failure unless you fail to learn something from it. That's right, we ought to stop calling these bumps in the road “failures” and start calling them “Learning Experiences!” When you fail, the first thing you should think is “What can I learn from this?” If you can pull just one idea out of that question, then the experience was worth it.

Sometimes failure is a blessing in disguise. Just ask the 3M Company. They were looking for an incredible adhesive and actually got a sticky paste that held, but not permanently. What a failure! No, instead, they spread some on the back of little sheets of yellow paper and called them “Post-It Notes.” Have some? I'm sure you do. The 3M company thanks you for rewarding their “failure.”

People won't think poorly of you if you fail. This is perhaps the biggest myth, and the one that causes us to never attempt our dreams. We don't try because of what Aunt Martha may say about us at the family reunion. The truth is, however, that people will actually respect you for trying. The only thing I have found that people think poorly about you is if you handle yourself badly when you fail. Sore losers get the bad press, not people who attempt great things!

Failure isn't the end but the beginning. One of our greatest fears is that our whole world will collapse if we fail. Or at least the project will. The truth is that that rarely happens! Most of the time we can pick back up again, make some adjustments and be on our way! This is a new beginning. Now there is no need to go down the road you have already taken, so there is one less option you have to try on your new journey.

Sometimes we miss out on success because we quit in the middle of a problem and it becomes a failure instead of an obstacle we could have persevered through. When people encounter trouble they have a tendency to quit. And then they see themselves as having failed. My question is this: What if they would have kept on going - persevered? Perhaps they would have struggled a bit and then broke free again. The failure happened only because they quit! So don't give up - keep pushing - and perhaps you will see yourself through to victory!

The greatest thing to overcome is the fear of failure. Most of the battle is right between our ears. It has been said that “we have nothing to fear but fear itself,” and that is true because in most of our “failures,” the end result is usually much less than we feared it would be. Yet in giving into fear and not trying, we suffer the ultimate consequence - no success! So begin to tell yourself the good stuff! Change the direction of your thinking and begin to see the possibilities of success, not failure.

Remember, properly looked at, failure can help you further your future!

Bonus: Questions to ask yourself when you “fail”:

What can I learn from this?

What did I do right in this?

Where did this go wrong?

How can I start again?

What resources do I need to make sure this doesn't happen again?

Then use the answers to these questions to plot your new course.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #25941]

If you’ve listened to motivational speakers or read any self-help books, you’ve undoubtedly been told about the importance of setting goals. In fact, many people will tell you that goals are the key to success. Well, I’ve studied goal setting for nearly 20 years and I have a confession to make: I still don’t have a handle on this intriguing subject.

Here’s the problem. Motivational speakers and writers frequently oversimplify goal setting. Those who advocate what I’ll call the “traditional goal setting method” advise you to do the following to achieve your objective:

• Set a goal in other words, determine what you want to achieve

• Put the goal in writing

• Set a time deadline for the attainment of the goal

• Develop a plan and work the plan

• Visualize a successful result

• Maintain a positive attitude

• Measure your progress and make adjustments, where needed

• Persist until you reach your goal

All of this sounds great, except for one problem — most people don’t achieve their goals using this method! The vast majority fall way short of the mark. I’ve achieved many goals and also failed to achieve some goals with this system.

I’d also bet that virtually all of the people reading this article have failed to achieve many of their goals using this formula — despite the fact that they were positive and took considerable action.

Where did we go wrong? Why do we accomplish some goals using this formula, yet fail to achieve others? While I don’t pretend to have all the answers, here are some of my observations on the subject of goal setting.

1. Many people succeed without having specific goals. Over the years, I’ve noticed that there are many high achievers who have succeeded without setting goals at all.

• Actor Harrison Ford has said that he did not have a goal of becoming a movie star.

• Antonio Banderas said he never sets goals and finds goal setting very limiting.

• Cindy Crawford never set out to be a “supermodel.”

• Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright said she never set a goal to become Secretary of State — or, for that matter, to be appointed as Ambassador to the United Nations.

• And, I’m guessing that Vincent Van Gogh did not have a goal reduced to writing that said: “I will paint three masterpieces in the next 90 days and earn one million dollars.”

The bottom line: some people are hugely successful without using traditional goal setting methods.

2. Whether or not you set goals, you need clarity and passion to be successful. When I cite examples of those who succeeded without goals, I want to emphasize that these people still had a clear vision of what they wanted to do in their lives.

They were and are passionate about their work, they are constantly learning and growing in their field, they are willing to take risks, and they are committed to doing whatever it takes to keep moving forward. People who are vague and uncertain never attain long-term success.

3. The rules are different when it comes to business and sales. In business and in sales, I’ve found that to be successful, you DO need to be a goal setter (using many of the traditional methods). Here’s why: in sales, you need to get results quickly.

Either you produce, or you’re “out of the game.” Businesses can’t afford to take the view, “We’ll work hard and whenever we succeed, that’s okay.” With that approach, the business probably would not meet its payroll and would not gain the confidence of investors. There are some companies that prosper without setting specific goals, but these organizations are very much the exception.

More and more, businesses are using personality assessments to test applicants for sales positions and to determine beforehand whether the applicants have the potential to succeed in sales. This is a positive approach and helps to identify those who are well suited to play under these “rules.”

4. Some people are simply not suited to traditional goal setting models. Many people who advocate traditional goal setting methods claim it can work for anyone. I no longer believe that. If Harrison Ford worked as an insurance salesman, he probably would have failed miserably.

Some people simply don’t respond well to setting specific goals and achieving them within certain time deadlines. That’s not the way they perform at their maximum.

5. Failed goals usually reveal a lack of commitment. We have the ability to achieve most of the goals we set. However, we often lack a necessary ingredient: commitment. We think we’re committed to achieving a goal, but in reality, we’re not willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish the objective.

We get frustrated and eventually give up the goal. So, if you’re not making much progress on a goal, there’s a good chance that you’re not really committed.

6. Failed goals serve a purpose. It’s easy to look at failed goals as a disappointment or as a bad thing. I don’t see it that way, however. In fact, “failed” goals serve a purpose – to re-direct us to a better path.

Often, we set goals based on what others tell us to do – or what seems like a good way to be successful or make money. When we don’t achieve these goals, we give up on them and then have an opportunity to pursue a different path, which is often more in line with our abilities and our unique personalities.

7. There is an “X” factor when it comes to attaining goals. Sure, you need a positive attitude, enthusiasm and commitment to achieve a goal. But there’s also an intangible factor working behind the scenes – I call this the “X” factor.

As we’ve all seen in sporting events, the championship game can be decided by a bounce of the ball, a fraction of an inch or a missed call by a referee. Granted, it’s the prepared competitor that puts himself or herself in a position to win, but make no mistake about it, sometimes serendipity or fate seems to step in to help us achieve certain goals.

More than 40 years ago, Maxwell Maltz, M.D., wrote a classic book on goal setting entitled Psycho-Cybernetics. Dr. Maltz believed passionately that we need to have goals or targets. However, he thought it was counterproductive to try to figure out with the conscious mind how to attain the goal. He recommended focusing on the end result and allowing your automatic guidance system to determine the “means whereby” that goal is achieved.

My point is that goal setting is not a “one size fits all” concept. If I’ve confused a bunch of people here, that’s okay. If you out and out disagree with me, that’s fine, too. I want you to start thinking more about goal setting instead of simply following methods that don’t work for you.

Traditional goal setting methods work for some people, and I would encourage those people to continue using them. But they don’t work for everyone, and the statistics prove that very convincingly.

There is a path that will work for you. Keep challenging and fine-tuning the various approaches to goal setting and you’ll

Find a system that will produce positive results for you!

When you hear the term “faith failure,” what comes to mind? If you are like most people, the expression immediately drums up uncomfortable thoughts of a spiritual blemish on your Christian walk. Try as we might, however, we simply cannot or will not go through this life without failing from time to time.

Most troubling to Christians are those instances when we allow other factors to get in the way of what we know God is telling us. Can you remember a time when you knew the Lord wanted you to do something, but for some reason, you decided upon a different course of action? When we allow anything to short-circuit our obedience to the heavenly Father, we can be certain that we have just had a faith failure.

One of the key reasons for spiritual missteps is the simple issue of fear. Now, we never have to be afraid of losing our salvation once we are secure in Christ; rather, what I’m talking about here is the fear of failure. We simply do not want to fail in the challenge that God sets before us. Therefore, instead of meeting the call head-on, we run and hide. In our minds, it is better not even to bother trying than to try and fail.

Is that the attitude God desires? No! He has not called us to a spirit of fear; He desires boldness and veracity in our faith. Don’t bow down to the idol of fear. The God who calls you is strong enough to keep you. He will never assign you to a task that He has not already empowered you to achieve.

Someone has said, “Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on the stuff we are made of.”

Do you believe this? While the adage may duly encourage the pillars of personal character and integrity, patience and perseverance, I wonder if it presents an accurate picture of life. A grindstone mechanically moves forward changing rocks unknowingly and indifferently. Yet whether the rocks come out polished, sharpened, or crushed is first contingent upon the rocks themselves. Certain rocks polish well; others, being soft and brittle, fall to pieces.

It begs the question: What are you made of? Are you strong and solid or weak and fragile? Will life bring you to pieces or will you come out gleaming? The image is largely a “get your act together,” or “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” philosophy. It suggests the daunting idea that if I am only strong enough, I will come out okay, I will come out sharpened and shining.

But who has not experienced a time in life when you feel more like a crumbled mess than a picture of polished solidity? I hear the tender words of Victor Hugo in Les Miserables on the lips of the dying Fantine who cries, “Life has killed the dream I dreamed.” In the cold and hard turns of life, she was crushed and left in pieces. Her story is stirring because each of us can recall aching moments when life has made a mess of us, or those regretful moments when it is we who have made a mess out of life.

A news story once told the account of a girl missing for 10 years who was thought to be kidnapped or murdered but actually had run away from home. Upset that her mother had said no to something she asked to do, she ran away only to live in hiding all those years just a few miles from her parent's house. When asked why she never went home, the girl replied, “Because the lie had gotten too big.”

Who has not felt like this on some scale? “I've made a mess and it's become bigger than me, bigger than I know how to deal with.” Perhaps this is what the psalmist had in mind when he penned the words, “My iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me” (Psalm 38:4 ESV). Yet, in the same breath, the psalmist also declares, “O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you” (38:9). Is his knowing our trouble comfort enough to lessen it?

Life sometimes leaves us bruised, but it is infinitely more than an inanimate tumbler or callous sharpener. I believe there is a better picture painted throughout Scripture. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God gives an image that reminds us that the author of life does not deal mechanically or capriciously with his children. Writes Jeremiah, “I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do” (Jeremiah 18:3-4). He did not throw the clay away because it had crumbled, or because it had become less than what he intended; he took the spoiled vessel in his hands and he reworked it.

As a potter carefully reshaping clay, God can take our broken lives, the messes we've made, and the weights that crush us and make of us something whole, something beyond the pieces we've given Him. What God will make of a willing life is a picture to wonder at and a truth to mull over. You are in his hands.

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Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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In the Garden of Gethsemane on the night Jesus was arrested, the disciples fell asleep when Jesus had asked them to stay awake; they turned their heads away in weariness when he had asked them to pray and keep watch. They felt the heaviness of their eyes instead of the heaviness of the moment, though Jesus repeatedly tried to stir them to be alert. It was a day of failings. After Jesus's arrest, everyone deserted him and fled. Peter, who had emphatically declared he would never deny Christ, heard the rooster crow and knew exactly what he had done. In the aftermath of three denials, Peter wept bitterly. One wonders how the other scattered disciples received the morning.

What do you do with despair? What do you do when you know that you have messed up, when you know that you have missed an opportunity, when it seems that all of your shortcomings are written in large print across your life and there is no going back with an eraser?

Most of us walk away from a ruined moment thoroughly defeated. But where do you go? And how long do you remain in your defeat? Do you throw up your hands and stop trying? Do you mentally beat yourself up? Do you carry your guilt as if paying penitence? Do you, in the words of George MacDonald, house a conscience that does its duty so well it makes the whole house uncomfortable?

Christian author Joni Eareckson Tada knows intimately what the face of despair looks like. Injured in a diving accident that left her paralyzed, she was once convinced she had missed God's best for her. Her misstep loomed before her, and because of it, she believed that God was somehow forced to go with his divine Plan B.

Do we, in our assailings or failings, hold a similar perspective? In the regret of a missed opportunity, the guilt of a failed moment, the despair of an irreversible situation, it is understandable that we sometimes sink into the hopeless thought that it is all over. It is easy beat ourselves up, to despairingly ponder what it means to have missed God's best, and to believe that somehow, with disappointment, God must now come in and adjust his plan for our lives.

How significant, then, are Christ's words to his despairing disciples, and to those of us who have ever felt the sting of regret. To those who had fallen asleep, Jesus returned and said, “Rise, let us be going” (Matthew 26:46). To Peter who had denied him three times, Jesus took him aside and said, “Feed my lambs” (John 21:17). To his once scattered disciples, Jesus offered two commands, neither asking them to sit in a corner and think about what they'd done, nor asking them to carry their sense of guilt for a time before thoroughly moving on. He simply said, “Go” and asked for their obedience.

For the disciples, it was a day of failings. For God, it was the fullness of time, the moment in history when the floodgates of heaven were opened, and failed days, missed moments, and broken lives were forever offered a hope that does not let us down. There are days that we can never get back, words we can't erase, and times when we have certainly failed. Yet in Christ, all is never lost. But all is gained. In him alone we are accepted, redeemed through his blood, forgiven of our sins. In him alone we are adopted, received as children of God, and loved as heirs of the promise. Do not despair. Go and follow.

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Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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The crucible of suffering proved to be where Greg Harris found hope to sustain him through the hardest season of his life.

Harris, associate professor of Bible exposition at Southeastern College at Wake Forest, and his wife had just endured a span of three and a half years during which their twin children had died at birth, Harris had been crippled with rheumatoid arthritis and God had closed every door before him in ministry.

“I had pretty much given up on life,” Harris said of period in 1993. “I went to the Word as my only source of hope. I found tremendous answers from God’s truth. God answered not only my questions, but my heart and my hurts as well.”

Harris candidly recounts his struggles -– and the hope he found -– in “The Cup and the Glory,” published by Kress Christian Publications. The title is taken from Harris’ study of the themes of the cup of suffering and the glory of God -- topics he sees as closely related in Scripture.

Harris said he hopes readers can draw strength from the truth of God’s Word; whether suffering themselves or comforting others who suffer, believers will find benefit for their souls as they encounter what Scripture teaches about the glory of God.

“I hope people will be drawn to the glory of God,” Harris said. “I did not know anything about it, other than as a phrase in certain Scripture passages or songs. Once you understand a little about what God has promised regarding His glory, everything else on earth seems so small. Once you have even a trace of understanding about God’s glory, any ministry, no matter how small, becomes wonderfully important.”

In the end, Harris said he is grateful for the events in his life, painful as they were.

“Suffering was the divine catalyst to drive me to the study,” Harris said. “Writing from the pit of despair changed everything about how I perceived suffering, God's work and true biblical ministry. I am by no means a victim. I very much thank God that He has used the events in my life to compel me to go to Him and His Word for answers.”

The dissonance that comes when personal experience and belief contradict is a painful discord. What do you do, for example, when you have believed that God always heals, and yet you watch helplessly as a loved one dies of cancer? How do you affirm God’s love to a woman who was sexually abused as a young girl? How do you respond when you are told that God has a wonderful plan for your life, and yet you cannot square that wonderful plan with a series of professional and personal failures?

The fortress of beliefs we sometimes hold as impenetrable can come crashing down as life’s experiences crush us. In the aftermath, the alternative shelters of cynical doubt or blind faith beckon us to take refuge with them. For most of us, we run perilously between both extremes, without the sense of security that the fortress once provided.

The Bible is replete with stories about individuals who faced the difficult conflict between what they held as truth and what they experienced in their lives. Joseph was told by God through a sequence of dreams that he would one day be a great ruler and that even his family would bow down to him. He had been given a glimpse of his destiny, and he could have easily concluded that the road would soon lead him to the landscape God described. Instead, he was almost murdered by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused by his master’s wife, and spent much of his life in jail. I highly doubt this was the path to glory Joseph imagined for himself.

Surely, Joseph believed in a God who watched over him and ruled the world with justice and mercy. But what was he to do with this demonstration of justice and sovereignty? Sitting in a jail cell falsely accused doesn’t align with our ideas about justice, nor does it seem to point to a merciful sovereign.

Yet despite the contradiction between his life experience and the dreams God had once given him, Joseph seemed to affirm his trust in God. He confirmed God as the provider of dreams and interpretations; he acknowledged God as the one who makes all things known. In every position Joseph found himself in, he found favor with God and prospered. Though in slavery, he was put in charge of Potiphar’s household. Though in prison, he was put in charge of the rest of the prisoners.

Perhaps even wrestling through belief and experience, contradiction and discord, God can give us new perspective and a deeper understanding. Perhaps even in loss, God can alter our understanding of gain. Listen to the words of Craig Barnes:

The deep fear behind every loss is that we have been

abandoned by the God who should have saved us. The

transforming moment in Christian conversion comes when we

realize that even God has left us. We then discover it

was not God, but our image of God that abandoned us....

Only then is change possible.

Sometimes it is through loss of vision that God restores our sight. Indeed, Joseph later tells the very brothers who betrayed him, “[I]t was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:8). Elsewhere he insists, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (50:20). Life doesn’t always go as planned, but the plans of God are sufficient. Joseph witnessed the sovereign hand of God, though probably not in the way he first imagined it. Perhaps we, too, need to look again at our discordant intersections of faith and experience. Often it is God Himself who stands at the crossroads.

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Copyright © 2006 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

A recent study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has concluded that men who are nice (or “agreeable” as the study describes them) make as much as $7,000 less a year than those who are more ruthless. According to the study, “disagreeable” men are those who “aggressively advocate for their position during conflicts.”

In contrast, “agreeable” men are those who are known as “trustworthy, straightforward, compliant, altruistic, modest, and tender-minded.”

In a Wired magazine entitled, “Do Nice Guys Finish Last?” Jonah Lehrer writes, “When it comes to success, we assume that making it to the top requires ethical compromises ... the point is that those who win at the game of life don’t obey the same rules as everyone else.”

Now, while I doubt most successful people engage in ethical compromises, you can probably point to some, shall we say, who don’t “play nicely with others.”

Take Apple icon Steve Jobs, who passed away earlier last year from pancreatic cancer. Lauded by Time magazine as “technology’s great reinventor,” Jobs and his creativity have impacted nearly all of us — from Pixar to the iPhone. He ended life with $8.3 billion in the bank. But as his biographer Walter Isaacson said in an interview with NPR, Jobs was “a tough customer, very demanding ... he divided everybody into heroes and dunces ... he could be brutal.”

Here’s the problem: It’s one thing to assert that those who make the most money will do whatever it takes to succeed, even if it means running over a few people in the process. But it’s another thing entirely to equate financial gain with true success.

A colleague of mine just heard of a man named Brendan who left his career in the construction industry, liquidated his retirement savings, and moved his family to South Africa to work at an orphanage for HIV/AIDS orphans. Brendan says he remembers the days when he would lay his head on the pillow at night, knowing that he had worked hard to make money for himself and his family. Now he goes to sleep knowing that more than 120 children are loved, healthy, and safe.

I’d say that is a good bit closer to true success.

Now I’m not saying that making good money is a bad thing. Nor am I suggesting that everyone move to Africa. And I am definitely not saying that being truly successful requires being weak or timid. (Nobody, especially my grandmother, would accuse me of being either.) And in fact, many of those who committed their lives to redemptive causes were extremely determined and passionate individuals.

William Wilberforce, for instance, who fought to abolish the British slave trade, was everything but diffident. The difference is that he was fighting for the good of others, not his own agenda.

The point is this: Money is a faulty measuring stick for assessing a good life. Rather, a good life — as I describe in my book by the same title — is one lived by those who follow what Christ says, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

And if being “trustworthy, straightforward, and tender-minded,” which Wired magazine and some psychologists seem to say turns you into a loser, the world then, it seems to me, needs more losers.

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Copyright (c) 2012 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #29498]

The just Lord is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: every morning doth he bring his judgment to light, he faileth not. — Zephaniah 3:5.

“Money failed in the land of Egypt” (Gen. 47:15), Job said, “My kinsfolk have failed” (Job 19:14), The Psalmist said, “My flesh and my heart faileth” (Psalm 73:26), “Mine eyes fail” (Psalm 69:3), and “Refuge failed me” (Psalm 142:4). In Ecclesiastes Solomon said, “Desire shall fail” (12:5), but “There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken” (Josh. 21: 45), and Jeremiah said, “His compassions fail not” (Lam. 3:22). The Lord says, “I will not … suffer my faithfulness to fail” (Psalm 89:33). Elijah said to the widow woman, “Neither shall the cruse of oil fail” (1 Kings 17:14). “The Lord thy God … will not fail thee” (Deut. 31:6).

He loveth always, faileth never, so rest on Him today, forever.

In 1962, four nervous young musicians played their first record audition for the executives of the Decca Recording company. The executives were not impressed. While turning down this group of musicians, one executive said, “We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out.” The group was called The Beatles.

In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Modeling Agency, told modeling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, “You’d better learn secretarial work or else get married.” She went on and became Marilyn Monroe.

In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry fired a singer after one performance. He told him, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.” He went on to become the most popular singer in America, named Elvis Presley.

When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it did not ring off the hook with calls from potential backers. After making a demonstration call, President Rutherford Hayes said, “That’s an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?”

When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2000 experiments before he got it to work. A young reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times. He said, “I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.”

In the 1940’s, another young inventor named Chester Carlson took his idea to 20 corporations, including some of the biggest in the country. They all turned him down. In 1947 - after seven long years of rejections! - he finally got a tiny company in Rochester, New York, the Haloid Company, to purchase the rights to his invention, an electrostatic paper-copying process. Haloid became Xerox Corporation we know today.

Wilma Rudolph was the 20th of 22 children. She was born prematurely and her survival was doubtful. When she was 4 years old, she contacted double pneumonia and scarlet fever, which left her with a paralyzed left leg. At age 9, she removed the metal leg brace she had been dependent on and began to walk without it. By 13 she had developed rhythmic walk, which doctors said was a miracle. That same year she decided to become a runner. She entered a race and came in last. For the next few years every race she entered, she came in last. Everyone told her to quit, but she kept on running. One day she actually won a race. And then another. From then on she won every race she entered. Eventually this little girl, who was told she would never walk again, went on to win three Olympic gold medals.

The moral of the above stories: Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved. You gain strength, experience and confidence by every experience where you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you cannot do. And remember, the finest steel gets sent through the hottest furnace. A winner is not one who never fails, but one who NEVER QUITS! In LIFE, remember that you pass this way only once! Let’s live life to the fullest and give it our best.

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Source: Marcella’s Inspiring Collection

And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. — 1 Peter 5:10

Do not gloat over me , my enemy!

Though I have fallen, I will rise.

Though I sit in darkness,

the Lord will be my light.

Because I have sinned against him,

I will bear the Lords wrath,

until He pleads my case

and establishes my right.

He will bring me out into the light;

I will see his justice. — Micah 7:8-9

The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. — Psalm 145:14

Sometimes the road is bumpy. You stumble. You fall. You feel like a failure, and all you want to do is curl up in a corner and cry. it’s like your heart is bruised and your soul is battered. But dry your eyes, wipe away your tears. The Lord Jesus Christ will lift you up. Move toward Him-crawl if you have to-and ask Him to restore you. Reach out your hand and He will pull you to your feet. God doesn’t want you to stay down. He doesn’t think you are a failure. You are perfect in His eyes.

Your vow to God. . . I will always try my best in whatever I do. BUT if I stumble, if I fall, I will trust that You, my Lord, will lift me up. I know You have a divine plan for me, and You want me to succeed. I am Your child-I am always a winner in Your eyes.

Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic won 43 straight matches over a period of six months before losing to Roger Federer in the French Open in June.

This amazing series of wins, against the best players in the world, rocked the sport of tennis. But it was the loss, and a string of bitter defeats last year during a self-described personal “crisis,” that set the stage for Djokovic’s greatest triumph to date: his first Wimbledon championship. He beat defending champion Rafael Nadal July 3 in convincing style on the sport’s biggest stage.

“[L]osing that really epic semifinal against Federer -- a great match -- I managed to recover and to come back ... and to win Wimbledon for the first time in my life,” Djokovic told reporters.

Winning is great, but losing helps you get better -- if you learn from your mistakes. Any good athlete or coach will tell you the same. Compete with bigger, faster, better players, they advise. Pay the price of losing repeatedly in order to gain the skills to win.

Wise parents and teachers instill the same approach to life in children. “Helicopter parents” who anxiously hover, terrified their kids will stub their toes or not get into the school play, are only ensuring greater failure down the road. If you don’t fail once in a while, you don’t grow. And you fear taking on something really challenging.

Churches, ministry organizations and mission teams often make the same mistake. They stick to the script, the proven program, the best practice. But some brave soul has to discover for the first time what works, usually by repeated failures.

Pastor/author Rick Warren reminds leaders at his church “that they have my permission to make at least one mistake a week,” he wrote in a 2004 Baptist Press column. “I don’t want [them] to fall into sloppy habits, but I do want them to feel free to fail because that means they’ll also feel free to take risks! My point is that if you’re not making mistakes, then you’re probably not trying anything new. And if you’re not trying anything new, then you’re not learning, and if you’re not learning, then you and your ministry will quickly be out of date, perhaps even irrelevant. The secret to being innovative is not being afraid to fail.”

It’s also the secret of faith, Warren added. The unprofitable servant in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-29) was also the unfaithful one. He took no risks with the money his master gave him. Peter, on the other hand, recklessly stepped out of the boat to walk toward Jesus on the stormy sea (Matthew 14:22-31). He began to fail, to sink. His faith was small. But it was greater than that of the other terrified disciples huddling in the boat.

Nearly every business and management book published in the last 25 years probably has a chapter titled “Freedom to fail” or something similar. It sounded great -- until the U.S. economy failed spectacularly in 2008 because of foolish risks taken in Washington and on Wall Street. Now investors fear spending their money on new ventures. Businesses hesitate to hire new workers. The economy will never truly recover, however, until people in a position to change things risk failure and show some faith in the future.

“At this point, freedom to fail probably ranks right around freedom to remove your own appendix,” observed business writer Megan McArdle in a recent article for TIME magazine (“In Defense of Failure”).

“That’s a pity, because failure is one of the most economically important tools we have,” McArdle wrote. “The goal shouldn’t be to eliminate failure; it should be to build a system resilient enough to withstand it. ... The real secret of our success is that we learn from the past, and then we forget it. Unfortunately, we’re dangerously close to forgetting the most important lessons of our own history: how to fail gracefully and how to get back on our feet with equal grace.”

Too many organizations, however, insist on punishing failure.

“I once taught a workshop in a large organization and included an activity where I asked the delegates to think of the ‘second right answer’ to a problem,” says Mark McGuinness, who coaches organizational creativity. “They looked like rabbits caught in the headlights. When I asked them what was wrong, they told me they were always expected to come up with the right answer and were severely punished for making mistakes. No prizes for guessing how creative they were. And yet -- when they relaxed a little -- they showed me they were perfectly capable of thinking creatively. It was the fear of punishment that stopped them from using this ability at work.

“People and companies that succeed through innovation take a very different approach to failure. They accept it, or even encourage it, because they know that failure holds the key to success. ... Encourage people to try new things and learn from their inevitable mistakes. Reward them for being open and honest about mistakes and failures -- so that these are not swept under the carpet, causing even more problems. If you’re going to punish anything, punish failure to learn. If you don’t, the market will.”

Are you listening, ministry leaders? Disciple makers model how to follow the Lord, just as Christ did with the Twelve. He sent them out two by two, let them learn the hard way (see Peter and the boat) and patiently taught them day by day. I’ve lost count of the number of Christian leaders I’ve seen sabotage their own ministries by refusing to allow their followers to grow through failure.

If you want hundreds of examples of victory coming through failure, defeat, loss and despair, read the Bible.

The 2006 independent movie Zyzzyx Road made just $30 at the domestic box office. The film, with a budget of $1.2 million and starring Tom Sizemore and Katherine Heigl, owes its tiny revenue to its limited box office release -- just six days in a single theater in Dallas -- for the purpose of meeting legal requirements, rather than its ability to attract viewers. According to co-star Leo Grillo, it sold six tickets, two of which were to cast members who were reimbursed.

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Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, "Box office bomb"

Robert Schuller was one of the most innovative preachers in America. His denomination gave him $500 to start a church. He visited 3,000 homes in the area and asked people what they wanted in a church. Since it was Southern California, they wanted something relevant and convenient. So he made a deal with a drive-in theater, and people sat in their cars while he preached from the roof of the concession stand.

The next year he set out a plan to grow to several thousand members and a staff of 10 to 12. In 1980 he built a church designed by renowned architect Philip Johnson. It had 10,000 panes of glass and a Jumbotron. He called it the Crystal Cathedral. In today’s dollars, it cost $60 million. Their Christmas and Easter pageants had professional musicians, live donkeys and costumed angels who flew.

He televised his church services to millions. Most of his attendance was viewers who came to visit - but just one Sunday. Even as his viewership grew older and attendance and giving started to decline, he added a $250 million Family Life Center, a $5.5 million prayer spire and a $40 million welcome center.

Many of his family members were on the church staff. In 2004 he picked his son to succeed him, but he never really gave him power. Within six years Schuller fired his son, declared bankruptcy on all that debt, and sued his own church. A short time later his church was all but gone and Schuller himself was dead. Today the Crystal Cathedral is a Catholic church.

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Adapted from the book “Next: Pastoral Succession that Works," by William Vanderblowemen and Warren Bird (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2014), pp. 98-104.

What a pair of seemingly contradictory psalms teaches us about telling the church’s story.

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Every Christian storyteller has a dilemma. When you want to communicate the history of your people — your church, your denomination, or the church as a whole — how do you frame it? As an encouraging story of corporate faith, courage, obedience, and success? Or a chastening story of God’s faithfulness and mercy despite corporate sin, confusion, and stubbornness?

If you’re casting vision or fundraising, you’ll want the former. Everybody likes hearing their victories celebrated and their sacrifices noted. But if you’ve read the Old Testament recently, you’ll notice how often the latter approach prevails. If anything, the Hebrew prophets and poets go out of their way to replace cheery pep talks with cold, hard looks at human intransigence and divine grace.

The storyteller’s dilemma is how to do justice to both. Simply repeating the encouraging version on loop (or whenever you need money) risks blowing smoke, and Pelagian smoke at that; people will assume their good works have merited God’s blessing. But hammering home the chastening version risks despair and apathy. If we’re all such miserable failures, riddled with incompetence and sin, then why bother?

Scripture provides a fascinating way through. Hidden in the Psalter at the end of book 4 lie two adjacent songs that tell Israel’s story in opposite ways. Psalm 105 gives encouragement, depicting an Israel that never puts a foot wrong. Then Psalm 106 chastens, with Israel getting hardly anything right. If we didn’t know the full Old Testament background, it would be hard to credit both portrayals as true.

In Psalm 105, the successes of the patriarchs (vv. 7–25), and especially of Israel during the Exodus and Conquest (vv. 26–45), provide reasons to praise God and remember his wondrous works (vv. 1–6). There is no mention of Israel’s failures, of grumbling in the wilderness, unbelief, or worshiping of the golden calf. “They asked, and he brought them quail” (v. 40) is a remarkably generous account of a fairly colorful incident. So is the psalm’s conclusion (vv. 44–45): “They fell heir to what others had toiled for — that they might keep his precepts and observe his laws. Praise the Lord.” It almost reads like a whitewash.

Then we turn the page and encounter a very different version of the story. Psalm 106 is a litany of disasters. “We have sinned, even as our ancestors did; we have done wrong and acted wickedly” (v. 6). Our fathers rebelled by the Red Sea (v. 7). You rescued them, but they quickly forgot about it (vv. 13–15), craving meat and putting you to the test (a rather different spin on the quail story). Our ancestors were jealous (vv. 16–18), idolatrous (vv. 19–20), forgetful (vv. 21–23), unbelieving (vv. 24–27), immoral (vv. 28–31), and disobedient (vv. 32–35) — to the point of sacrificing their children (vv. 36–39). The only reason we have not been destroyed is that God “remembered his covenant and out of his great love he relented” (v. 45).

Reading the two psalms in sequence is discombobulating. It prompts the disturbing question: Which version is true? The answer, of course, is both. Each focuses on some things and omits others, as all stories do. But both are faithful accounts of what happened, and both ultimately have the same objective, with their opening and closing lines calling Israel to praise the Lord. Did Israel trust God for deliverance from Egypt and the provision of land? Yes. Was Israel guilty of all sorts of evils along the way? Yes.

Here lies the solution to the storyteller’s dilemma. There is a place for honoring heroes of the faith and celebrating the courage and generosity that brought us this far. There is also a place for looking our sin and idolatry squarely in the face, acknowledging that God would have destroyed us long ago were it not for his gracious mercy.

We need both stories. When either is neglected, we can slide into a triumphalist hubris or a self-loathing torpor. But when both are told together, with successes appropriately celebrated and failures duly acknowledged — which is roughly what we see in Psalm 107 — we are chastened and encouraged as we remember how God’s grace carries us across mountaintop and valley alike.