Failure is not in the falling. Failure is in not getting up again. In Proverbs we read: “A righteous man falls seven times, and rises again.” This is the definition of people of faith: those who get up when they fall, not those who never fall.
Jesus is history’s Master Storyteller. He taught with story, he played with story; he healed with story, and he loved with story. Story is the bread and butter of our lives. Finding out our personal identity demands that we, and those we love, sojourn into places that we sometimes would rather not go.
And many times, those narratives are filled with stumbling and falling. It is painful, and it hurts us and those we love. If we cut people loose when they stumble and lose their way, we risk losing them forever. If we don’t show them the way back home and welcome them with open arms, they will wander into places that could trap them forever. Christians tend to forget that children of God are not only meant to dwell inside the light, but we are also to shine in dark places.
It takes time for a silkworm to turn into a butterfly. It takes time for an acorn to become a mighty oak tree. It will take time for people to transform as well. Sometimes we will discover that they have more to clean out than we were apparently aware. Some people live by old patterns of thinking can linger and stick to the sides of the mind like cobwebs in the attic. God knows how to prepare a new door to open, but we have to be careful, for, as Alexander Graham Bell said, “Sometimes you stare so long at a door that is closing that you see too late the one that is open.”
I heard a story about a female dog that was hit by a car. Her leg was badly broken leaving her with a severe limp so that she continually dragged one of her back legs behind her. Later on, she had puppies that were all perfectly healthy. However, when the young pups began to walk, the owner noticed that each of them also limped in the same way. Despite the fact that they were physically beautiful, they walked just like their mother! The puppies were dragging around something that was perfectly able to function! Some people have areas of their lives that they have moments of failure only because the ones who trained or mentored them also had a “limp.”
If we don’t give people room for failure, then we won’t allow them the opportunity to succeed, either. Giving people room to roam and permission to fail is the crux of grace-filled relationships.
