Overcoming The Fear Of Failure (Part 3)

“…for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again…” Proverbs 24:16

Did you know that there is a National Failure Day? August 15th is set aside to honor all people who have experienced failure. The day is meant to encourage people to venture out with continued determination to pursue their hopes and dreams. The Bible tells us that everybody fails. James, in chapter two, says we all fail and fall short. You have to realize that failure does not have to be final. The righteous man falls seven times a day and rises again. Don’t camp around the fire of failure. Get up and try again.

In Major League Baseball, to be a superstar, you have to be okay with striking out 700 times out of 1,000. You only have to hit the ball well 300 times out of 1000, and you can still get a multi-million dollar contract. In baseball, you have to fail to succeed. Babe Ruth had 714 home runs and 1,336 strikeouts. So, the one who was known as the “Strikeout King” became the “Home Run King” because he refused to give up. 

Seventeen-year-old Roger Bannister tried out for Oxford’s track team and was denied. He didn’t quit and kept working hard until he finally made the Olympic team. He failed in Helsinki, Finland, and the headline of the London Daily Mirror described his failure to 6.5 million people. But two years later, Bannister decided he would not go down as a failure, and he did what everyone said was biologically impossible to do. He beat the world record of a 4-minute mile by running it in 3 minutes and 59 seconds. 

You can come back from failure. You can even get stronger from it. The rest of your story still needs to be written.

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