Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.

John Keats
English lyric poet (1795 - 1821)

I want to announce today that anyone who stops at failure is doomed to fail. The reason is because failure is just a momentary step on the road to success. Most often, I have found that anyone who is successful has gone through some level of failure and the only difference between those who are successful and those who are failures is that the successful use their failings as a learning mechanism and not a reason to quit.

Failure is defined as an act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful; lack of success. Fail is defined as to fall short of success or achievement in something expected, attempted, desired, or approved. These definition simply shows us that failure is not permanent but something temporary as well as a pathway to success. Anything that you fail at can be done over if you so desire. If the the moment is truly important, than repeating the process will eventually gain success.

We need to change the way we look at failure in order to give it a more positive perspective. Any advent weightlifter will tell you that, You'll never know how much weight you can lift until you reach an amount that you can't. This is commonly known as "lifting to failure" which means that you push yourself as far as you can until you cannot lift anymore. I've experienced this during my strength training days and it helped me to understand that, although you cannot lift it today, you can come back in a few days and try again. Pushing yourself as far as you can will let you know what is possible, but, by avoiding your limitations, you will never reach your peak. The fear of failure stops us a lot quicker than what true failure can do in itself. If you can push past failure, you will be surprised by what you can accomplish. Proverbs 24:10 says, If you fail under pressure, your strength is not very great.

Failure is so important in weightlifting because it breaks the muscles down so much that you cannot possibly lift anymore at that point. But, this doesn't mean that you will never be able to lift the weights, you just won't lift it at that moment. It is important to understand that failure is not final, but just momentary. It was once said,

You always pass failure on the way to success.

Mickey Rooney US actor (1920 - )

Anyone who works out, understand that, if you have reached failure, then stop for now, take time to allow the body to heal and when you come back, you will find that you are not only stronger, but you can now lift the weight you failed at before. Failure just means that the body is broken, but, once it is healed from the brokenness, the body is actually stronger. Therefore, in those areas where you have failed, you should not quit, but take time to heal and try again. You will discover that your approach to the situation will be different.

Also, any area of your life that you have experienced failure should not be a place of avoidance but a place of growth. This means that, as you go through life, you will meet failure but you shouldn't make it your home. It is just a part of the process. Thomas Edison once said, Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. This is the true essence of failure and it is also the greatest weapon of defeat. As long as we stop at failure, we will miss out on some of life's greatest rewards.

I encourage you to press beyond failure. Don't just allow failure to stop you from getting everything God has for you. As long as you remember that "no word from God will ever fail." (Luke 1:37), then you will always have the strength to overcome.

Failure is not final....

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14)

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