No More Mr. Nice Guy: Saying Goodbye to Doormat ChristianitySample

You Have the Right to Fail

Note John Mark’s experience of failure: “Now when Paul and his party set sail from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia; and John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem” (Acts 13:13 NKJV). John Mark went back home. “Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark. But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work. Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus” (Acts 15:37-39 NKJV). Later on, Paul wrote this: “Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11 NKJV).

I once heard a commencement speaker say, “Failure is only in the dictionary of fools and cowards.” That’s a lie. It’s in all of our dictionaries.

Let me tell you something: A successful person is not a person who doesn’t fail. A successful person is someone who got up the last time he or she did fail.

I often tell my seminary students when they become especially adamant and unbending about something, “You haven’t lived long enough, sinned big enough or failed nearly enough to know anything about that.”

On the authority of God’s Word, I give you permission to fail.