Failure. “It’s taken me most of my life, but I think I have perfected FAILURE to an art form.” A great quote, isn’t it? Many of us try to hide our failures, believing that they will reveal that we are losers, incapable of finishing anything, of accomplishing anything of significance. Others have a deeply rooted fear of failure and so work themselves to death to be successful. Probably another group of us are content with being failures. It’s just too much effort to try anymore.

            The choices we make in life will determine whether we are successful, marginally successful, or, well, failures. Then again, it also depends on who is defining success, failure. Being a CEO of a Fortune 500 company with your 5^th wife, with kids who don’t want to be around you is not much of a success in my book.

            Speaking of my book, I would like to reveal to my more pertinacious readers some of my failures.

1.      I failed in being a good dad to my kids when they were younger.

2.      I failed in being a good son to my dad.

3.      I failed to build the kinds of teams needed to expand the reach of NEED’s principles of communication-in-community to Christians who still do commando raids for Christ.

4.      I failed in living out the holiness God has already granted me.

5.      I failed in being a consistent, genuine Christian, often falling into being merely a nice one.

6.      I have frequently failed in humility, seeking my own ascent in place of lifting up others.

7.      I failed in resilience, settling for 2^nd best, 3^rd; or I’ve just given up, giving in to hopelessness.

8.      I failed in losing my temper 8-9 times in my life. Maybe that’s not too bad?

9.      I failed in admitting I was wrong too many times.

10.  I failed in many relationships, disappointing people and letting them down.

There are many more areas in which I’ve failed but I must limit this confession to one page for the sake of my readers. If you want, I can tell you more things I’ve done that are really terrible. Seriously.

If I can admit the things where I have failed, maybe you can to. Some things I’ve been able to correct and received forgiveness; others, not so much. But I do not dwell here: I press on, still failing, making colossal mistakes, and watching God make use of me nonetheless.

Pass/Fail? God have mercy,

  Gary