Leadership Thought: Words Written to a Sad Friend Who Relapsed.

Dear Friend,

I have a good friend who has struggled for many years with an alcohol addiction. After months of sobriety, he relapsed, a familiar story in his years of battling his addiction. Discouraged and feeling defeated, he wrote me and shared his utter humiliation over what he perceived as another failure on his road to recovery.

My friend was remorseful and was saying all the right words that his friends and family wanted to hear, but whether he ‘fails forward’ will be determined by his future attitude and actions.

We can leverage our failure if we learn from it. As I said to my friend, “failure is never our enemy, it is our attitude and response to it that determines whether or not it becomes our enemy."

Every time we fail, we need to remind ourselves that even though we have failed, we have failed a few feet forward. We are moving in the right direction. We are making progress. And when this happens, we need to get back up and recognize we are a few feet closer to success. Failure creates opportunities for growth, but only if we learn from it and leave it behind us. If we learn from it, failure becomes our friend

In a men’s leadership class, we studied the book Spiritual Leadership by Oswald Sanders, and in his chapter on failure is a passage worth noting. Quoting historian James Anthony Froude, Sanders writes, “The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a singular and peculiar trial. Peter the apostle, though forewarned three times, denied his Master on the first alarm of danger, yet the Master, who knew his nature in its strength and in its sweetness chose him. Successful leaders have learned that no failure is final, whether his own failure or someone else’s.” Spiritual Leadership, Oswald Sanders, p 163.

Paul reminds us that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28) So regardless of what you have done or the number of times you have failed, God is not finished with us for He is always at work, ready to reclaim our story and write a new and fresh beginning.

If you have ever failed, and that’s includes all of us, you might want to read the "Red Sea Road."

                   Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life,

                   Where in spite of all you can do,

                   There is no way out, there is no way back,

                   There is no other way but through?

                   Then wait on the Lord with a trust serene

                   Till the night of your fear is gone;

                   He will send the wind, he will heap the floods,

                   When he says to your soul, ‘Go on.’

                   In the morning watch, neath the life lifted cloud,

                   You shall see but the Lord alone;

                   When he leads you on from the place of the sea

                   To a land that you have not known;

                   And your fear shall pass as your foes have passed,

                   You shall no more be afraid.

                   You shall sing his praises in a better place,

                   A place that his hand has made.”

                                Annie Johnson Flint

Have a great day, and if you are ever walking the Red Sea Road, take a listen to Ellie Holcome as she sings the words of this song which reminds us that God writes wonderful comeback stories!

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

The expression "failing forward" was taken from book of that same name by John Maxwell