Why Failure Is an Option - Part 2
We continue our discussion of how failure may very well be an option in our work, indeed in our lives - an option presented to us by Our Lord Himself. We build on our last discussion, and if you haven't already read that, please feel free to do so now. We continue to follow the words of Archbishop Alban Goodier, S.J. as we did last time.
And when that failure follows so many prayers and sacrifices offered to God asking for His help, we can't help but wonder why He seems not to help, even seems not to care about the importance of our success. Doesn't He understand that our intentions are good? We're not being selfish or greedy. We simply want to reap the rewards - the perfectly natural rewards - of our strenuous efforts. We want to get that better job to help our families live a decent life. Well, I hope you get the point here.
So it turns out that, of course, He knows all about our good intentions, about our willingness to work hard, and all the rest. Yet He has other plans. And how often we may be tempted to discouragement when it becomes clear that His plans don't include ours.
Yet how important it is for us to accept His Will even if we don't necessarily understand it. Perhaps Archbishop Goodier's words will help us to not only accept His will, but to at least understand His will - at least on some level - a bit better.
I, for one, am going to re-read these last two posts, and do so slowly and thoughtfully. I've had my share of successes and, frankly, more than my share of failures (at least that's the way it appears to me). The point here is not to excuse failure, but to see how God's Will and His Holy Plan is all that really matters in this world.
Perhaps next time, as I pick myself up from my latest failure, it will be in spirit of acceptance, even joy, that Our Lord has given me that failure in order to perfect my soul. Perhaps I will see that failure as more pleasing to Him. Maybe I will even understand how and why failure in His hands is success.
"A man may do nothing noticeable in the eyes of other men; he may even fail in everything he may try to do; and yet his conquest of himself and his own little kingdom, may mean more for the rooting of the kingdom of Christ upon earth than the life of one who has been conspicuous. It is God who gives the increase, and He alone; as Nicodemus wisely said, anything that is merely of man will certainly in the end come to nothing. Far better it is, for the spread of the kingdom that shall be permanent, to secure that the service of the King in one's own little kingdom shall be perfect, than to waste energy on that which may be more conspicuous, but for whose lasting effect we have no security whatever.Read that last sentence again. Failure in His hands is success. How hard it can be for many of us to accept our failures as being a part of God's will. We try so hard to succeed, many times for the best of reasons: we want to support our families; we want to provide a good example to others (perhaps our own children) of the value of hard work, and the rewards that hard work can bring; we give generously of the fruits of our success to good, charitable causes. And yet, at times, perhaps many times, we fail.
"How often do God's dealings with us confirm this perspective! We long to do something for Him, and He seems to thwart us at every turn. He will sacrifice what seems to us His own interests, that the individual soul may be perfected instead by the failure. He will refuse to allow a soul to do or to obtain that for which its little nature yearns, that it may give itself to that which is more pleasing to Him, and which in time He, not I, will put to better count.
"This is why He loves failure; this is why failure in His hands is success."
And when that failure follows so many prayers and sacrifices offered to God asking for His help, we can't help but wonder why He seems not to help, even seems not to care about the importance of our success. Doesn't He understand that our intentions are good? We're not being selfish or greedy. We simply want to reap the rewards - the perfectly natural rewards - of our strenuous efforts. We want to get that better job to help our families live a decent life. Well, I hope you get the point here.
So it turns out that, of course, He knows all about our good intentions, about our willingness to work hard, and all the rest. Yet He has other plans. And how often we may be tempted to discouragement when it becomes clear that His plans don't include ours.
Yet how important it is for us to accept His Will even if we don't necessarily understand it. Perhaps Archbishop Goodier's words will help us to not only accept His will, but to at least understand His will - at least on some level - a bit better.
I, for one, am going to re-read these last two posts, and do so slowly and thoughtfully. I've had my share of successes and, frankly, more than my share of failures (at least that's the way it appears to me). The point here is not to excuse failure, but to see how God's Will and His Holy Plan is all that really matters in this world.
Perhaps next time, as I pick myself up from my latest failure, it will be in spirit of acceptance, even joy, that Our Lord has given me that failure in order to perfect my soul. Perhaps I will see that failure as more pleasing to Him. Maybe I will even understand how and why failure in His hands is success.
Comments