faith is a risk
“Then Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he became afraid and began to sink, crying out, ‘Lord, save me!’ (Matthew 14:29-30).
Jesus asked Peter to get out of the boat. There is always a risk when we attempt something that has never been done before. The naysayers seem to have come out of the woodwork. Why? Because it’s not their perspective, it’s yours. Sometimes we fail the first time. It is a fact that most entrepreneurs fail before they actually succeed.
“Success,” said Winston Churchill, “is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” Everyone fails. It is part of the process that leads us to maturity and success. Most successful entrepreneurs do not accept their failures as defeat. They think of these as lessons.
If you hope to succeed, learn everything you can from your failures. In Shamgar’s three success secrets, Orlando Magic executive Pat Williams said, “Not all of our experiences may be wins and successes, but so what? Failure is usually a far better teacher than success – if we are willing to learn the lessons. As Houston Astros pitcher Larry Dierker said, ‘Experience is the best teacher, but a tough grader. She gives tests first, lessons later.'”*
God never gets caught up in our past failures. He is constantly watching our lives with future success in mind. “See, I do a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not understand? I make paths in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isa. 43:19). Someone once said, “When your memories are bigger than your dreams, you are headed for the grave.” God wants to give us new dreams that are bigger than anything that has happened to us in the past.
Don’t let past failures keep you from future successes.
*Pat Williams and Jay Strack, The Three Success Secrets of Shamgar (Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc., 2004), p. 103.
