FAILURE: See Growth

I had a thought today, and I'm just going to put it out there. I think the word "failure" should be completely wiped out of the English Language.

We've been talking a lot with our Small Group about how what we think and how we believe directly affects our ability to really live in the freedom we've been given. We have a lot of negative thinking inside our heads that has accumulated through many years, and it's going to take a conscious effort to change that thinking. It takes a conscious effort to choose to believe what God says rather than what we've been programmed for years to believe by the world. And as I was thinking about it today, I decided this would be a great place to start.

Failure. The word can make you cringe. No one likes to fail. And most people find it hard to recover from failure. At the very least, it causes you to become a little gun-shy when faced with trying something again. Worst-case, you climb into a hole and shut yourself off from the world vowing never to go through it again. I'm convinced it's because the world has taught us to look at failure all wrong.

If I were able to go into every dictionary and change one thing, I would list failure like this:

Failure: See Growth

How long have we been looking at failure as baggage we have to carry around? A black mark on our foreheads that makes us feel that we have to prove ourselves again? I don't believe God has ever looked at it that way. His focus has always been on growth. It's never what actually happened that matters, it's where you're going, where it leads you. Maybe Peter would have never been as passionate of a servant to Christ if he hadn't first denied him 3 times. Does that make his denial a failure or part of the process of growth?

It will take a conscious effort, as it does with changing anything in our deeply-held belief system, but I want to start a movement. This will be a movement where everything that was once labeled as a failure will now be celebrated as a process of growth. Every time we get the opportunity to grow, it should be celebrated! Buy a cake...invite some friends! Let's celebrate the knowledge we have today that we didn't have yesterday! REFUSE to look at anything that happens as a failure that pushes you back. CHOOSE to see it as growth that is moving you forward!

REFUSE and CHOOSE! Are you in?