Quotes about Failure

You and I can learn the same. Christ-based contentment turns us into strong people. Since no one can take our Christ, no one can take our joy. Can death take our joy? No, Jesus is greater than death. Can failure take our joy? No, Jesus is greater than our sin. Can betrayal take our joy? No, Jesus will never leave us. Can sickness take our joy? No, God has promised, whether on this side of the grave or the other, to heal us.

We prefer to get salvation the old-fashioned way: We earn it. To accept grace is to admit failure, a step we are hesitant to take. We opt to impress God with how good we are rather than confessing how great he is.

I had focused on the failure because I had not yet acquired the wisdom necessary to attain a better perspective.

Jesus loves us. He is not scandalized by our failures. He is not limited in what he can do with what's left after family disasters. Nothing is beyond his redemption when he is invited in. No one with a whit of breath left is beyond the reach of his grace.

So how do we go from stumbling to standing? The answers will vary according to where and how we fail, but the source will always remain the same: God and His precepts of life. That's why you must be in the Word of God on a consistent basis . . . You have to determine to take advantage of what God has made available. Kay Arthur, As Silver Refined

The amateur has not mastered the technique of his art. Nor does he expose himself to judgment in the real world. If we show our poem to our friend and our friend says, "It's wonderful, I love it," that's not real-world feedback, that's our friend being nice to us. Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it's for failure.

A professional does not take success or failure personally.

In an odd way," he says, "your making a hash of this has brought you into the club. We've all committed our share of balls-ups. What counts is setting things right and pressing on.

Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him.

My friend Tony Keppelman snapped me out of it by asking if I was gonna quit. Hell, no! Then be happy. You're where you wanted to be, aren't you? So you're taking a few blows. That's the price for being in the arena and not on the sidelines. Stop complaining and be grateful. That was when I realized I had become a pro. I had not yet had a success. But I had had a real failure. FOR LOVE OF THE GAME

It's the best of jobs. It's the most difficult of jobs. It can bring you the greatest joy. It can cause the greatest pain. There is nothing as fulfilling and exhilarating. There's nothing so depleting and exhausting. No area of your life can make you feel more like a success when everything is going well. No area of your life can make you feel more like a failure when things go wrong.

Learn from your disappointments and failures and with God's help seek to overcome them. Ask yourself, could I have done anything to prevent this? Were my hopes and dreams unrealistic, or were my motives wrong? Is there a new path God wants me to explore?