By: Undre Griggs, Jr.
If you grind to better yourself, you understand failure is a part of life. We have to look no further than our lives as children. There was a point in time we did not know how to ride a bicycle. While learning, we fell many times and even contemplated giving up, but we didn’t. With guidance, we were able to learn from our failures and we ultimately achieved our goal.
Proverbs 24:16 (NKJV): For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity.
Consider some of the classes we took while we were growing up. We may have learned addition in the first grade, subtraction in the second grade, multiplication in the third grade, and fractions in the fourth. Each year there was an initial struggle and when we finally understand the process, the school wanted to teach us different mathematics. It is likely we contemplated whether we knew enough arithmetic to forego learning anything else. The sting of struggle and failure can be a deterrent of growth, but God wants us to understand our shortcoming is where His strength prospers.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NIV): But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
In many instances, unlike children, adults have the ability to choose whether they will endure failure and suffering. Since we have the option to continue, our mind may be focusing on the pain in an effort to determine whether the pain is worth pressing through. Children, understanding the requirement to continue are more likely to accept and learn from the experience. Like our younger selves, we have to disregard the pain and focus on what we can learn from the experience.
Romans 5:3-5 (ESV): More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
In life we need to remain as humble as little children, understanding our wisdom is not greater than our Father’s. In a world full of sin, failure and suffering are guaranteed and should be anticipated. We need to set our minds on the fact it produces character and hope within us. We should find peace in the love that God has poured in our heart; remembering that God’s power is made perfect in our weakness.
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