Often a book I read inspires me to write
a weblog summarizing the arguments made by the author. This was the case
after reading Erwin Lutzer’s book Failure: The Back-Door to Success.
Lutzer is the pastor of the historic Moody Bible Church in Chicago and,
over the years, has become one of my favorite authors. I encourage you to
check out some of his many books sometime.
Allen Raynor Weblog: “A Fresh Perspective on Failure”
(May 31, 2011)
It is natural for human beings to generally prefer
success over failure. The really tricky part though is determining, and
then understanding, what really constitutes success. In his book, Failure:
The Back Door to Success, Erwin Lutzer explores the issues of success and
failure and offers a slightly different take than the typical consensus that
failure is bad and success is good. He explores how success often is born,
out of failure. It is true historically, and it is still true today.
Sometimes failure is merely a stepping stone to ultimate success. In the
words of Peter Marshall, “It is better to fail in a cause that will ultimately
succeed than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.” Sometimes
there is a bit of a “wilderness” wandering which must take place for us before
we can really hear God speak. Often the clamor and noise of the world and
its subsequent distractions cause God’s voice to be drowned out to our
hearing. Sometimes He is speaking and we just cannot hear; other times He
is not speaking at all and forcing us to wait for our own good and
development. Lutzer writes, “Often the doorway to success is entered
through the hallway of failure.”(30)
Was anyone ever called to be a failure? Well there are a handful of
Biblical characters that we could point to that would be failures in the eyes
of men. But these same characters were hardly failures in the eyes of
God. Was Noah a failure because he could not convince more people to get
in the ark? Was Paul a failure because he was ultimately martyred?
Was Hosea a failure because his wife played the harlot? Was Stephen a
failure because he was stoned to death? Consider this discouraging
assignment given by God to Isaiah.
‘Go, and tell this people:
Keep on listening, but do not perceive; keep on looking, but do not
understand.’ ‘Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears
dull, and their eyes dim, lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts, and repent and be healed.’ (Is. 6:9-10)
Lutzer writes, “Isaiah was told in advance that the
people would not respond to his ministry! He was to preach only to
provide a further reason for God’s coming judgment!” Worldly success was
very limited for any of the Old Testament Prophets. In fact, as I have
read a number of leadership books and church growth books I do not find much
about the prophets. The Bible is used, but not often the prophets.
Unfortunately, we have come to believe we know what success is and anything
which does not look like the world’s version of success looks suspiciously like
failure. But is it really?
Well, it might indeed be true failure, but it also might be the particular
“class” in the curriculum of God’s school in which we are students. About
the time I was 1/3 of the way through my Hebrew course in seminary I was not
only thinking about how I could get out of this “pressure cooker” of a class, I
was thinking about filling out applications at Home Depot!
Suddenly wood screws, pipe fittings, and plywood was much more interesting than
pronominal suffixes and sere yod’s! One of my young sons at the time was
looking at some Hebrew sentences I was attempting to translate and asked the
profound question, “Daddy how do you read it when it is written like
that?” That was a good question, which I did not have a good answer
for! Every day of Hebrew class I felt like a failure. I feared
being called on by the professor to answer a question or, worst of all, have to
go to the board and show my work in front of the class. I realize now it
was not true, but at the time I felt like I was the only student in the class
who was lost and the others had a handle on things. I ultimately came out
of the class with a B+ but felt like I was swimming upstream the whole
way! I did not fail Hebrew – not even close – but I felt like I was
failing the whole way through. Sometimes we only feel like we are
failing when we really are having some measure of success.
Neither failure, nor the threat of failure, is necessarily a bad thing.
The threat of failure can serve to motivate and otherwise sharpen our actions
with a precision which nothing else could do. But failure can be
painful. How many painful lessons from childhood can we recall?
C.S. Lewis said, “Pain is God’s megaphone.” In much the same way, failure
is an important word from God. Circumstances are one of a handful of ways
by which He tends to speak to us. Failure is not necessarily a bad
thing. Failure can work to make us better, failure in the world’s eyes
may be unmistakable success in God’s sight. True failure however,
can even motivate us to get on the road to true success. My advice would
be, to use all your failures wisely in your pursuit of true God-ordained
success!
In Christ,
Dr. Allen Raynor, Pastor
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