As a mother of four, I have watched my share of Disney movies. One of the movies I enjoyed very much because of the hilarious small armed T-Rex was “Meet the Robinsons.” In this movie the main character, Lewis, is an inventor. He only feels like his inventions are a success if they work properly and when they fail, he is devastated. That is until he meets the Robinsons, his new family, and they show him a new point of view. They show him that failure is a success because we can learn from it, we can grow from the experience. What a great lesson! 

I’m afraid I was not taught that way when I was growing up. It was a succeed and feel pride or fail and be ashamed mentality passed on to me.  If I got it right, I was proud and felt accomplished. When I failed, I would certainly not celebrate it, more likely I would hide it or lie about it.  I never saw failure as an opportunity for growth but only as an opportunity to show how weak and not good enough I was. Embarrassment and shame went hand in hand in those situations. 

The way I was taught carried over into my adult life. If I failed as an adult, I would hide it, cover it up, and certainly feel shame over my personal failings completely blaming myself. Even to the point of beating myself up over it, over and over and over again. It my mind failing was obviously what I was bound to do as someone who was deficient. That look on Lewis’s face when he failed in front of his new family, when he was devastated at his failure, I understand it full well because I’ve lived it. It’s a scene played out in my own life. So many mistakes, so many times I fall short, and oh so many times I’ve missed the mark. Then comes the inevitable shame. But does it have to be this way? Is there a better way to live or a better perspective to see my failures through? 

Yes, there is a different way to live, a better way. First, we all have to realize a huge truth, we are human.  I know this doesn’t seem like a great revelation after all it is so obvious, but it is something we need to consider.  We need to understand the implications of our humanness, and our human nature. The Bible declares that we all like sheep have gone astray. There is none righteous no not one.  All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This doesn’t paint mankind in a very positive light, but it declares that we are very much flawed as humans. The Bible even declares that our hearts are wicked and selfish. Not a good look. We like to think that we are better than we really are. The truth is without Christ there is no good in us, no righteousness, and no holiness. Apart from the vine there is nothing good, productive, or successful that we can do. So, we must accept the truth of our weakness, our humanity, our selfishness, and our unrighteousness. Yet we are not left in this weakened condition without help. 

You see God knew we would fail, God knew we were flawed, yet he still loved us. This leads me to the next part. We don’t stop in the part of the verses that declare how weak and corrupt we are as humans.  We read on.  Yes, we are fallen but God! Look at the scriptures further. All we like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way, but the Lord has laid on him, on Christ, the iniquity of us all. Though our hearts are evil, and we are not righteous in ourselves, Christ offers us his own righteousness as a covering. He offers to turn our stone hearts into hearts of flesh. He promises that if we ask, he will make us new, restored, and redeemed. So, stopping at I’m evil or messed up is not right. You have to go further. We are made right in Him. We are in process. We don’t quit because of our failings because we realize that he is still working on us.

If we know we are flawed, and we accept then that he saves us, what does this have to do with Lewis and the message of failure being a success? After all it’s not a success if we sin. But here’s the point, even as a believer we will still fail and fall short. God’s work will continue working in us through our struggles. Instead of looking at these times as seasons that we should feel shame over, we can change our attitude. 

Romans declares that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So even when we fail as believers, we are still his, we are still not under condemnation, and we are free from guilt and shame. God’s grace will be sufficient, and he will forgive us. God would not want us to return to those same things over and over. When I fail, I do what it says in proverbs for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in the times of calamity. Or as a song I once heard said “we fall down, we get up, the Saints are just the sinners who fall down and get up.”

 Remember he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. You will be complete. Till then celebrate that we can learn from our failings. We are becoming stronger because of our struggles like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon getting strong enough to fly because of having to push its way out of the cocoon. It is the same for us. If you descend into shame, you miss the lesson, you don’t learn, and then you are apt to repeat the same mistakes. Then you find yourself stuck in this shame cycle. When I refer to the shame cycle here is what I mean.  First, I feel ashamed of something I’ve done and then that drives me to seek comfort which generally means that I go back to that thing that I did, which then brings me to shame again. Yeah, it’s crazy. But that’s what shame does. It gets you stuck, and you never really grow, learn, change, or move forward. So instead of getting stuck in the shame cycle, it’s time to break the shame cycle. That’s what I plan to do. When I get up and brush myself off after falling down, I’m going to listen and learn, asking God to help me see how I can live better.  Seek God’s wisdom on how I can proceed differently in a way that will bring about true change. Maybe I will fail again in new ways. As a matter of fact, I can almost guarantee it. Yet I will rise again and again, no matter how many times I fall down or no matter how many times it takes to overcome. I will continue to get back up. Till that blessed day I will finally emerge from the cocoon and fly, transformation complete, and stronger for the struggle.

To my fellow sojourners, I pray you will do the same, and make the same choice. Keep rising, fighting, holding on to faith and rejecting the shame. One day we will all fly, fully transformed. Celebrate. Celebrate not that we have failed or sinned. Instead, we are celebrating that we are free from the shame of it, we are celebrating that we can learn and grow from our failures and experiences, we are celebrating that we are able to through God’s strength get back up again, and we celebrate not only for ourselves but for others. Others who like us are fighting the good fight. Celebrate the process, and what that process means. The implications are ultimately wholeness and completeness, and yes perfection finally as one day we will be as we were meant to be.

Be like Louis when he learned a new way, look at your family of believers around you and celebrate as we are all in process, that’s how it was meant to be.

Scriptures: Proverbs 24:16, Micah 7:8, Romans 8:1(the whole chapter is amazing, you should read it all), Isiah 53:6, Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 3:10-12, Ezekiel 36:26-28, Hebrews 3:13, Hebrews 10:24-27