Progress Not Perfection

A decade ago, I remember hearing a youth minister, Mark DeVries who had developed a family based youth ministry program, tell of this fear at work. After he had persuaded his church to adopt this new ministry model a member of the leadership and, from what I can remember, a youth parent, said to him, “Mark, this cannot fail! This is the church you know!” I cannot fully remember what he said in return but it acknowledged that failure was a distinct possibility and that they needed to acknowledge the fact!

Think about this with me for a moment.

(Slide 6) Those who take bold chances don’t think failure is the opposite of success. They believe complacency is. (Source: Rabbi Shai Specht via twitter.com/RabbiShaiSpecht October 13, 2009)

Peter did, to re-quote Max Lucado, chose ‘where to stare’ during the storm. He took a ‘bold chance,’ to re-quote the rabbi, and not let complacency keep him from getting out of the boat and start walking toward Jesus.

Yes, he did fail, his focused changed, the waves loomed large and he started to sink, he failed. But Jesus did not leave him drowning (literally) in his failure.

He rescued him!

(Slide 7) So what does this mean for us today? How can we begin to embrace the process of progress and reject the demanding performance of perfection when we fail, as we will, in moments of faith during the storms of life?

How can we learn from those painful moments of failure, often deeply debilitating, when the Lord carries us sopping wet back into the boat (a place of safety and rehab) that we will need?

(Slide 7a)

1. Choose to learn from failure. It is not an easy thing to do. To face our own failure, not so-and-so’s failure, my failure requires a strength of character and will that, I truly think, only comes as we surrender our will to God’s and choose to learn.

Let me read a portion of something that some here will probably recognize right away.

(Read several of the opening paragraphs from chapter 5 of the Big Book of AA, How It Works.)

Ask anyone who has taken on the work to ‘work’ the 12 steps how hard it is. It is not easy as I have heard and seen over the years.

This is one way of learning from failure, and because I think it is truly rooted in the Christian faith, it has helped millions of men and women overcome their addiction to many things.

But to overcome; to learn from our failures, requires us to make the choice to learn.

(Slide 7b)

2. Cultivate hope. One of the reasons for this series is to help hope grow in our hearts. As followers of Christ, expressing hope not naïve optimism, is critical these days, through our anxieties and fears loom large.

Over in 1 Corinthians 13:13, we read, “There are three things that will endure—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” Yes, love is the greatest. But, hope stands next to love and without hope, love is weakened.

There is the last half of 1st Peter 3:15 which says, “And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it.” I wonder if Peter thought about that water walking experience many years later when he wrote those words.