Failure is not an Option
“And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there….” Acts 20:22 KJV
I’m not a big New Year’s resolution type of guy. Maybe that is because, like most, around March those goals have long since been forgotten. It all gets started on the first day of the new year.
New Year’s Day is a holiday. Holidays and weekends aren’t for resolutions. This year was really hard because New Year’s Day was on a Wednesday. You can’t start a new goal on a Thursday because you only have two days in that workweek.
Then it is the weekend. Who wants to start a resolution on a weekend? We can wait until Monday. Well, this year, Monday was the sixth day of the year. The delay or forgetting habit has already started to form.
The results would have probably been the same any other year, though. Eventually, like most people, it was just a matter of time before the resolution’s glory has faded away.
Why does this happen? First, I think we get comfortable where we are. Second, despite knowing it is for the best, we hate change. Third, to change requires us to break old habits and work at something new. Basically, we want to change, but it costs too much.
That’s why most years I don’t have New Year’s resolutions. Instead, in late November, or early December, I usually plot out goals. When January 1 comes along, I’m usually already working on my goals.
Last year I read two books that had a huge impact on my thought process. The first one was Joyce Meyer’s 20 Ways to Make Every Day Better. The second was John Eldredge’s book Wild at Heart.
Joyce’s book walks you through twenty different things you could do to make your day better. If you just read the book, it probably wouldn’t change your life. You have to apply the book. I found when I applied the principles she laid out, my days didn’t change, I did.
My favorite chapter in Joyce’s book was chapter two. It was titled “Dream Big.” She stated that when we were children, the sky is the limit on the dreaming of what we could become.
“Why do we stop dreaming?” she asked. I’m sure, like me, you could come up with a thousand excuses why this happens. When we give into excuses it stops us from action. This was an action book, so excuses were not allowed.
John Eldredge’s book looks into a man’s soul with powerfully focused glasses. He explained our misplaced views of what really motivates us. There are countless times we try to do it the world’s way, yet fulfillment never finds us.
John’s book hit a nerve inside me. I’m not totally sure I agree with all that was in the book, but the very core items hit that nerve. Looking for that man inside me was like a quest without a map. He helped show me what that map should look like.
As I worked my way through last year, I knew I had a choice. I could be happy where I was or I could work on that inner core that has been nagging at me. Through that process, I have been determined that 2020 is going to be a year of action.
The final pep talk I gave myself, heading into this year, was very direct. I would strive to head in the direction I believed God was calling me to go. No excuses. My steps would go in that direction. There would be no looking back.
If I succeed, a sense of fulfillment will overflow in my soul. If I fail, I will have given it my best effort. God will know I tried either way. He will also know that I am willing to completely place my faith in Him.
The best part of reading a Presidential biography is that moment they decide they want to be President. Most of the Presidents were people just like you and me. Sure you have the Roosevelts (Teddy and Franklin), Kennedy, and Trump who were born into rich families. But there are so many more like Fillmore, Jackson, and Lincoln who had very humble beginnings.
The amazing part is when that switch of desire turns on and they decide they want to be President. When they were young, I don’t think many of them had a clue they would one day become President. If failure eliminated people from becoming President, none of them would have made it into office.
Washington failed to convince the British to promote him. Madison was so short you had to look down to see him. Polk was defeated in his reelection bid for the governorship of Tennessee. Many thought that derailed his Presidential chances.
Grant was pretty much a failure in everything he did except being a general during the Civil War. Andrew Johnson failed to impress and was just a compromise Vice Presidential choice for Lincoln. Nixon failed miserably in his debate with Kennedy.
Failure with the Presidents, like our lives, is just part of life. What makes most of these Presidents different from us? First, they didn’t let their failure define them. Second, their passion was stronger than their fear. Finally, they didn’t believe what the world told them. They believed they could do it even if no one else did.
Failure is a very hard word for any of us to handle. The single most strength failure finds is its good buddy fear. If you are convinced that you will fail, more than likely, you will not even try. Failure wins without even lifting a finger.
If failure seems close, we try to fix things ourselves. Jesus wasn’t moving fast enough and His ministry was going to fail. Judas needed to fix it and he forced Jesus’ hand. King Saul didn’t want to wait for Samuel, so he started the church service without him. Samuel found David to take Saul’s place.
The look of failure causes us to doubt. Peter wanted to walk on water like Jesus, and he even took a few steps. But a slight breeze caused him to doubt and he sank. Even Abraham doubted his abilities to overcome the evil men of Gerar. He sent his much beloved wife, Sarah, to their king, Abimelek, as a gift.
Examples fill the Bible of people who conquer their fears, though. These individuals seem to ignore their fears and just concentrate their efforts on the goal at hand. They seem to say, “Nanny, nanny, boo, boo. Fear I can’t hear you.”
These brave Biblical individuals had fears facing them just like we do. It’s not like they didn’t see failure as an option. They just rather have had God tell them that their situation was not where success lied. Mankind is not the ruler over success or failure, God is.
I have often wondered how this man decided to become President. If I saw him as a young boy, I would have never guessed he would have become President. Sure, his father had served in the state legislature, but just for seven months. His father also served on the county school board. His son, the future President, would eventually serve on that school board, too.
But that was local politics, and national or state-wide politics were far from this future President’s thoughts. His main thought was to get an education and with it, a possible ticket out of this small town. Using that smart brain, he did indeed head out of town.
The military was where the best opportunity lied. In addition to his education, just imagine all the places in the world he could visit in the military. Yes, the world was right there in his hands. Everything was going as planned.
His father was a farmer in the south. Depending on the year, farming could be a great occupation. On those bad years, though, it could be tough to get by. The future President was looking for more security for his world.
As the future President’s career was skyrocketing, he received a message from home. His father was dying. His Mom convinced him to come home for what turned out to be his father’s last days. What would become of the family farm now?
The family decided to divide the estate into five equal parts. One part for his mom. Two parts for his two sisters and one for his brother. He would get the last share. Starting with the oldest, he gave each the option to choose their portion. He took what was left.
He would move back to the small town and oversee the farm. It was a financial mess. Many unpaid accounts popped up. The Internal Revenue Service audited the estate. Without any records to prove income, heavy penalties were levied.
His wife was very unhappy. She didn’t want to return to the small town they both grew up in. Besides, he was an up-and-coming star in his military career. She would barely speak to him because he decided to move back to the small town.
As if it couldn’t get worse, a drought hit the area. It was one of the worst droughts in history. Their gross income for that year was a whopping $280. That left his wife and him with no income that year. I bet that made her happy.
The future President’s stint on the local school board wasn’t a full time job. That doesn’t mean he didn’t take it seriously. One of the things that really upset him was segregation. He convinced the other board members to visit all the schools in the county. Maybe they could better understand those conditions.
Still, being involved in politics didn’t really interest him. That moment came in 1962, when the Supreme Court ruled in Baker v. Carr. Basically it stated that redistricting qualified for justiciable review. This effected his state’s “county unit” system where some rural votes equaled one hundred urban votes.
One of the greatest Bible characters to ignore mankind’s views was this one. If you were to list all the reasons he was a failure, it would fill pages. His story is of one set back after another. If anyone ever had a reason to give up, it was him.
Yet, this guy didn’t care what mankind thought, he only cared what God thought. It was so engrained in him that you literally could not beat it out of him. You couldn’t toss him in the sea to teach him a lesson. No, he would just think of it as bath to get him ready for the next adventure.
Let’s list some of his “amazing accomplishments:”
- Five times he received 40 lashes, minus one
- Three times he was beaten with rods
- Once he was pelleted with stones
- Four times he was shipwrecked
- He spent a night and a day in the open sea
- Often he was in danger
- He had many nights without sleep, food, or drink
- He was jailed several times
- A poisonous snake bit him
- Finally, he was executed
If I look at my all my troubles and all my toils, they are nothing compared to Paul’s list.
In his book A Full Life, Jimmy Carter states that the Baker v. Carr Supreme Court ruling prompted his entry into political life. This would cause him to run for the Georgia Senate. When the election didn’t go his way, he cried foul.
It seems, for instance, in Quitman County, he lost 360 votes to 136. The problem was, only 333 people voted in Quitman County. Other election issues came up, too. Eventually, Carter was declared the winner.
Jimmy Carter would eventually be elected governor of Georgia. Here he enjoyed a great deal of success. His Democratic party by far outnumbered the Republicans. This resulted in a lot of success for many of his programs.
Georgia’s legislative sessions were limited to only a small number of days a year. This meant that Georgia’s governor was one of the most powerful in the nation. It was very unlikely, for instance, any of his vetoes would ever be overridden. The Georgia governor also had the line item veto right. He could just strike out individual lines and veto them.
But Georgia limits their governors to one term. Jimmy Carter had to decide what to do next. In 1972, the Democratic Presidential campaign of George McGovern, asked Carter to deliver the nomination speech. Carter had high hopes he would be McGovern’s running mate. That call never came.
McGovern got creamed when he ran against Richard Nixon. The Democrats only received 37 percent of the popular vote. In Carter’s home state of Georgia, McGovern received only 25 percent of the popular vote. The Democrats would need to move in a different direction in the next election in 1976.
When Carter thought of a possible Presidential run, it was laughable at best. Nobody outside Georgia even knew who he was. Without anyone knowing who you are, no one was really interested in what you stood for.
Besides, you needed money to run a Presidential campaign. When the first question someone asks when they hear your name is, “Who?”, that is not a good thing. People don’t contribute to the campaigns of nobodies.
The next obstacle is the other “big names” who already were going to run. Popular President John Kennedy’s brother, Ted, was in the race. Former segregationist, turned civil rights promoter, George Wallace, was also in the race. “Jimmy who?” must have been the first question that got asked about Carter.
Yet, Jimmy Carter had one giant fan who never gave up on him. It was himself. Surprisingly, he knocked off the “big names” to win the Democratic nomination. Helped greatly by Gerald Ford’s pardon of President Richard Nixon, Carter would win the Presidential election of 1976.
It would be President Jimmy Carter now. Why? Sure the political environment was ripe for change. But there were bigger names and bigger ideas out there. The reason Jimmy Carter won was because Jimmy Carter did not give into the fear he couldn’t win. The odds made no difference. What everyone said, or didn’t say, didn’t stop him. Failure was not an option.
I wonder how many great ideas never happen because someone fears failure. Big dreams never get started because we are too often worried about what everyone else thinks. The work required to go after those dreams scares us enough to not even start. Failure wins because we let it win.
