Think about it.
attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it
feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times.
The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
Here’s what the acclaimed “greatest basketball player of all time” has to say about success:
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career.
I’ve lost almost 300 games
26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot … and missed.
I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life.
That is why I succeed.”
4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was
“sub-normal,” and one of his teachers described him as “mentally slow,
unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” He was expelled from
school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.
…Can anything good come from Nazareth? John 1:46
…Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son…” Matthew 13:55
…We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. Luke 24:21
To try and define failure is as difficult as trying to define success, and to try and expound on one without defining the other is nearly impossible.
Failure is simply unrealized success.
Success is basically disguised failure.
And yet we are terrified of failure.
Failure to perform, failure to measure up, failure to appear as we like, failure to produce.
This fear paralyzes us into a life of mediocrity and safe choices that we call reality or practicality.
We might even boast in our wise choices, good sense, and purposeful planning… all the while harboring a deeply seated awareness that there has to be more to life than avoiding failure.
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| Click here to watch Jim Carrey’s 60-sec snippet on fear |
“Our decisions in this moment are either based in love or fear.”
So absolutely true.
Second, he shares a tidbit about his father explaining that his father could have been a comedian but that he didn’t think it was possible for him. So he made the conservative choice to take a “safe job” as an accountant. Several years into his career his father got fired from that job and their family had to do everything they could to barely scrape by from the time Jim was 12 years old. Jim’s take-away from that:
“You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”
Does that resonate with you today? Does it stir something in your heart that whispers freedom?
Could it really be possible to do what you love?
Even further… could it be that the very thing you love to do is what you were made to do?
To press even further… is it even fathomable that what you love and were made to do is what brings God glory?
I dare to whisper through this electronic device to wherever it may land on you…
yes.
Yes.
YES!
God knows your innermost being and your every thought because He knit you together in your mother’s womb.
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
If these three statements alone are true then doesn’t it just make sense that we should do what we love and do it with excellence as unto the Lord?
If you love numbers, math, and a quiet office job then by all means be an accountant and be the best one your company has! But, if your Jim Carrey’s dad and what you love is people, laughter, and comedy then please don’t become an accountant!
If you love farming and raising livestock then do it and do it with pride and excellence, giving thanks to God for the harvest. But if what excites you is science and physics then do whatever it takes to leave the farm and go discover the Universal Laws of Motion, as was the story of Isaac Newton.
If you love creating, designing, imagining, inventing, and constructing then do not stop just because it doesn’t sell, doesn’t work, or doesn’t last. Like Van Gogh, you might have to die before you become an icon.
If what you love to do seems insignificant and mundane, you’re wrong.
If what you love to do seems too big and far-fetched, you’re wrong.
Am I advocating we abandon all concern for others and only take interest in satisfying our own desires? Not at all. Without elaborating on this at great length I will simply point to scripture as the defining parameters to help us discern what I mean by doing what you love, with excellence, to the glory of God.
“Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay. God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do
you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were
speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with
all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do
will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. “
But, on the flip side, if we are finding our greatest joy and satisfaction in God himself then everything we do, seemingly big or small, will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ.
Does that just seem too lofty of a promise to swallow?
Or too simple an ideal to be believable?
Jesus said,“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you… For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”Matthew 11:28-30
What makes the yoke light isn’t the lack of work to be done or the excellence with which we should do it… it’s light because of the One carrying the bulk of the weight (which isn’t you… if you’ll surrender control).
So, how do you define success and failure?
Is it a test result?
Is it a production report?
Is it based on popular opinion?
Is it represented by trophies, plaques, and certificates?
Is it measured by your net worth?
Success and failure are relative terms that quite honestly shift and change shape with each passing decade of a person’s life. A 30-yr-old’s definition of success is something altogether different than the 70-yr-old’s. An even broader difference would be God’s definition of success versus the culture’s definition. Eeeks.
In God’s economy it isn’t so much about what you do as why you did it.
Was it for your glory or His glory?
Was it out of duty or delight?
Was it rooted in love or labor?
Was it obedience or obligation?
Was it fear-driven or fruit-driven?
The apostle Paul makes it very simple for us in Galatians 5:6:
“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
So, whatever you do… whatever I do… let us do it in love through faith in Jesus Christ, who takes our failures and turns the coin over to make them successes.