Last week I wrote about being successful and fruitful and how those qualities direct our paths more than our education, training, experience, or plans. I believe when God allows us to be fruitful in a certain way, He is illuminating a road before us that might have been dark and mysterious.
Today, I am flipping this situation around to explore failure.
I am not referring to moral failure or sin-based failure. That kind requires personal repentance and a process of restoration.
Failure to meet expectations, rejection of your work, failure to choose the best course of action, failure to perform, failure for things to work out, or any of the other myriad ways we strike out are entirely different.
This kind of failure leads to deep disappointment, but you don’t need to ask for forgiveness unless the reason behind it was a moral failure on your part.
Setbacks are not the same as a moral stumble, but they are still a powerful influencing force.
How you deal with setbacks can cause your life to swing one way or the other. It can paralyze you or energize you.
The important response to any kind of failure should be to humbly ask God, “What are You wanting to teach me through this?”
Overcoming setbacks in the publishing process is the key to whether you have any future at all in the literary world. I can say the same thing about being an agent, a publisher, business person, or whatever role God planted you in.
Publishing is a “failure” business. If you meet expectations half the time, you will be in someone’s publishing Hall of Honor. Achieving a measure of success is a wavy graph consisting of ups and downs, setbacks and switchbacks.
To illustrate this perfectly, I was playing Candy Land (the worst game ever invented other than Chutes and Ladders) with one of my granddaughters not long ago. And I was thinking, This must have been invented by someone in book publishing! Seemingly by pure chance, you win or lose.
Just when you are making it to the finish line, you draw one of those evil candy cards and get launched back to the bottom of the board. Yep, this is exactly like publishing, I thought. (They’ve made all sorts of versions of Monopoly, so maybe someone should create a book-publishing version of Candy Land. Too bad the title Sorry is already taken.)
Defeating a setback begins by remembering you are not a special target for God’s wrath, but a child of a good Father who wants you to mature and grow stronger and more courageous in your faith.
More often than not, we grow more in our faith walk from a setback or failure than a blessing.
Ask God to show you what He is doing in your life through this situation. Make a new plan. Keep learning. Never give up. Try again. Rinse. Repeat.
The pathway to success is through setbacks. If you haven’t seen much fruit from your writing, maybe you haven’t had enough setbacks to hone your battle plan.
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love (Romans 5:3-5, NLT).
Spoiler Alert!
Yeah, I certainly have learned a lot through failure, argh! I have noticed that once in a while you will have an author whose very first book is published and is a great success. But sometimes upon needing to write and revise subsequent books, it becomes clear that they simply needed more time to be ready. Some of us are feeling REALLY ready now after so many ups and downs, but yes, they teach so much. And you need to try a different boardgame with your grands! Candyland is almost universally loathed in the boardgame community for the very reasons that you expressed, no strategy and all chance. Try Meeple Circus, Grim Masquerade, or Zooloretto! Even Happy Salmon is better.
“Defeating a setback begins by remembering you are not a special target for God’s wrath, but a child of a good Father who wants you to mature and grow stronger and more courageous in your faith.”
Oh, my goodness, Dan. I will carry this around in my writer’s treasure box for a very long time. Thank you. Sharing now.
Words of wisdom. Thank you for sharing your expertise and thoughts. I am about a year away from starting to submit my manuscript. This will keep me fortified and encouraged when the rejections start coming back. Writing, submitting m, publishing isn’t for the weak-kneed, but the bender knee. All glory to God, for both successes and failures.
It’s true we learn as much, or more, from failure as we do from success. And it’s encouraging than even successful people have failures along the way. I’ve seen a quote from basketball player Michael Jordan about how many times he missed the basket–yet he hit it enough to be a renowned player.
I so very much needed this post today!I love the idea of Candy Land as an example as well. This gives me hope for the continuing saga of my writing lags and rewrites. Thank you!
If you find you’ve not succeeded,
don’t reach for the hemlock cup;
for honour, all that’s really needed
is never, ever giving up
through the long and bitter nights
and Saharan desert days.
Perhaps your name won’t be in lights,
and you’ll not earn words of praise,
but know this, friend, and know it true
that your perseverance sends
to He that watches over you
a message, and His love portends
that work you undertook to start
wins special favour in His heart.
I must be on my way to becoming a spiritual giant. Hey! That’s a blessing, not a failure!
Oh my goodness, so, so true. It can seem like we’ve used up a lot of time chasing something that derails in the end. Failure can be a deal breaker. Are we down for the count or do we get up and go another round? I like to think of failures as opportunities to grow. Even if we choose to go in another direction, we have learned something in the process (hopefully). The spiritual dimension is packed full of seemingly failures that cause us to evaluate, heal, grow, and change. These become rich resources from which we use to help others. Nothing is wasted. Nothing. I’m so glad this is true. Then it’s not so bad.
Great value can be found in knowing “what-not-to-do.” I like to think of setbacks and failures as a pruning process that makes us more focused and productive everywhere else. And more intelligent and valuable to our business relationships.
Thanks for the encouragement 🙂
You have reminded us that failure is not a bad word. Thanks!
I certainly received this word, Dan. Thank you.
So true that we often grow more in setbacks and through failures than when things are going smoothly. Thanks for the reminder!
Thanks for sharing the information, It’s really helped me a lot.
“Ask God to show you what He’s doing in your life through this situation. Make a new plan. Keep learning. Never give up. Try again. Rinse. Repeat.”
Thank you for this, Dan.
So good. So true. Pure gold!
Thanks so much for these helpful words at the end of a very challenging week (or rather, month – or rather, year!).