What does it mean when you fail as a Christian leader? It can be tempting to believe that when you’re walking with God you should never fail, but sometimes He uses hard situations for His bigger plans. Listen to today’s episode to hear why it’s okay to fail and how to use it to become a better Kingdom leader.
Episode 7: How to Not Let Failure Defeat You!
“Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” - 2 Cor. 12:9-10 NLT
“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let the patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” - James 1:2-4
“If we endure, we shall also reign with Him” - 2 Tim. 2:12
Key Takeaways:
Our reaction and attitude toward hard times comes down to identity. How do we view ourselves? Is it as an agent of transformative change sent by God with a purpose? How we respond as followers of Jesus to hardship should be countercultural and Christ-like.
What you believe about God is THE most important thing about you.
Crisis is a normal event on the road to your destiny. Failure should always be a teaching moment for you and others.
We are in training for reigning!
Next Steps:
What to do after you fail:
1. Decide to be the type of person that understands as followers of Jesus, we live within a different Kingdom context, at the next moment of crisis, BE THAT PERSON!
2. Declare it – put feet to action.
3. Thank and praise God for His love and His purpose coming to fruition.
4. Expect God to direct your every step.
00:07: Welcome to the SALLT Leadership Podcast, the show for men and women who want to grow in their faith, want to live a purpose filled life and maximize their abilities and influence for the Kingdom of God. I'm Wes Lane. So if you slept since the last podcast, let me remind you of the context for both this show as well as for your life. You have been designbuilt by a living, loving God, who has sent you into a moment of history, to a geographic location as a part of His overarching strategy to redeem and restore the earth. You matter. You have a point to your existence, and God has a vested interest in seeing to your success, and the adventure of it all is for you to discover, if you will dare. So today's program… In fact, before I do that, the verse that I always want to point to on this is this, it's Ephesians 1:11 from the Passion Translation, "Before we were even born, he gave us our destiny; that we would fulfill the plan of God who always accomplishes every purpose and plan in his heart." Wow, that's you. So the title of today's show is this: “How to Not Let Failure Defeat You.” In other words, it's actually okay to fail.
01:42: So I'm using this from my own experience, this is always kind of helpful, so I was an elected official here years and years and years ago. I was the Oklahoma County District Attorney, and so in my last election, I won my first one, and I lost my second one. In fact, I only lost by a few hundred votes, but I mean anybody who's ever lost something like that, it's embarrassing. It's humiliating. I hadn't expected to lose. And I remember the TV cameras because it was a very contentious, very public, very loud race. And I remember the TV cameras at the end. I mean, oh, the white hot lights coming at you and everything, and they'd be saying, "So what are you gonna do now?" Like I had a plan B or something. I had no plan B. I thought plan A was that I was going to win and continue on as DA. Well, that was not the plan. Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever been in a position like that? Have you ever lost something? Maybe not as publicly as that, of course… Everybody has been in a place in their life in which the outcome has not been what they sought, and they've seen that as a loss. You got the feeling you have the big L on your forehead, loser and all that. In fact, that's what I felt like during that period of time. In that period of time, I was a very public figure. I couldn't go to the grocery store. This is not an exaggeration. I could not go to the grocery store, and not have people recognize me.
03:21: But whether it's public or whether it's private, it's still a loss, and you're feeling that, and so it's an embarrassment. You probably know what this feels like, but I just wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. But all of this, all of this, my reaction, our reaction, this all gets down to identity, who are you, and who do you see yourself as being? That governs everything you do. That's the choice that you and I, each of us have to make, because you see, if I see myself as an agent of transformative change, if I actually see myself as having been designed, built by God and sent into a moment for a purpose, His purpose, then I'm going to see myself in a different context. In fact, that's going to be a kingdom context, and my reaction should be different on how I respond to that. And one thing particularly, I'm going to have a decision to make, and the decision is, in my response to this, am I going to look like the culture that I'd really like to change, that I'm swimming in, or am I going to be a cultural change agent and seek to look like Jesus? And so how do I respond to that in a countercultural way, in a Christlike way, instead of being... Well, again, just hiding in my home and being sullen, silent and that sort of thing.
04:58: So how did I leverage? What did I do after I lost, in this very embarrassing, very contentious loss? I had to decide, first of all, who was I and how was I going to respond? And is my response going to be something that I think Jesus might actually do? So what I did was I still had about 10 or $11,000 in my campaign account. I went out and bought billboards all over this city, and on the billboard, rather than saying, "Wee, why did you get rid of me? I hate you," what I did was I put a billboard up and I said, "Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to serve as your district attorney." And at the base of that, I put my picture, I put that message, and at the base of that, I put Psalm 100, which is a Psalm of Thanksgiving. So I decided in that moment I was not going to look like culture and I was gonna send a different message. In fact, what I also did was I told my staff that we're going to invite my opponent, the guy that had just unseated me, and we're going to work with him. In fact, I took him to lunch within days at the most public downtown restaurant I could think of, so that the world, all of these people would see that this is how a follower of Christ responds to this, and I'm going to send a message that the justice system, which I was a part of, and he was now going to take over from me that we are not going to be petty, this is about the continuity of justice and all that.
06:44: And so all of this is to say is, what you believe about God is the most important thing about you, because that is going to discern, and that's the test, that's how you know, that's how I would know. Was I hurt and upset and sad and embarrassed? Oh yeah absolutely, I was. But how you will respond, it was based upon what I believed who God to be.
07:10: And so one other thing you got to keep in mind, and this is really important to realize this because people think just because, ‘Okay, I'm signed up and I'm a follower of Jesus now, everything's supposed to be like smooth city, isn't it?’ Well, no, in fact, crisis is a normal event on the road to your destiny. Think about that, crisis is the normal event on the road to your destiny. Why do you think that is? That's because you and I with a loving Father and being led by the Holy Spirit and having Christ in our heart, He is the greatest personal trainer in the universe. In fact, of course, He made the universe, He's the number one personal trainer, it is His goal to mold us and shape us into becoming that person He needs for us to be for us to be able to change the culture in a way that... Looking like Jesus is what we're supposed to be looking like, and remember, Jesus showed that suffering is actually a part of the journey and learning how to suffer... How to experience these things in such a way that others are built up and that they see Christ and His failure, failure should always be a teaching moment folks.
08:37: In fact, failure is that point at which we have the opportunity like no other to develop reputation with our Heavenly Father, because it's in that moment, not when everything is just all sweet as you please, and hey, everything is wonderful, and it's tiptoe through the proverbial tulips. It's when things are hard, that we have the opportunity to get a reputation with our Father that I actually am all in, you can trust me. I want to become the man or the woman that you would have us to become, we want to be that person. Never waste a failure. Never waste a failure and its opportunity for it to propel you and project you into being that man or woman that He is willing for you to become. Because remember this in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, each time he said my grace, this is Paul talking about Jesus, talking about my grace, my favor. What is grace is the unmerited, undeserved favor that He gives as a part of being a part of His family, nothing you did earned it. Nothing you did earned it, he says, “‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses,” Paul said, “so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure” Now listen to that. Didn't that sound crazy? It sounds crazy from the world's perspective, but it's not in the Kingdom of God. He says, “That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Or how about this? James 1:2-4, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let the patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
10:56: And finally, in 2 Timothy 2:12, “If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.” Do you hear that? If we endure, if we hang in there, we shall also reign with Him. See, one day, we will reign with Christ. So all of the this stuff that you're experiencing right now, all of this weight room of adversity, as we learn to hoist more faith into circumstances, it's all training for reigning, training for reigning, every bit of it is purposeful, and so God wove all of this into the fabric of our lives, our mission, our testimonies. And don't waste it. So my witness, in fact, I would just share this with you.
11:53: And I say this now, as a guy who's been walking this out for a long time, who’s had plenty of opportunities to make the choice. What am I going to believe? And my witness to you right now is this, is that God is a rewarder, He is a rewarder, and He is faithful. Wow, He really is, and we are training for reigning. So your next step, the next right step for you is, you've got to decide to be that person that understands as followers of Jesus, we live in a context. And at the moment of crisis, make the decision to be that person, not the lesser self, but to be that person that puts on Christ and declare it, put feet to action, because what's on our mouth, what we say is what we become in all truth, and thank and praise God for love and His purposes.
12:56: It is totally counterintuitive, totally countercultural, when we in the midst of adversity are actually saying, “Thank you God, I recognize that you actually know what you're doing, thank you that somebody knows what they're doing and I know the world says this is a crummy circumstance, a bad deal but in your deal, I know that you are using this to make me become the man or the woman that you have always seen us becoming because you have sent me to the now, and it is as a change agent and my being the radical look that Jesus had changes everything.” Just like the radical Christians of the first three centuries upended an entire empire, nothing's changed on that.
13:45: And so finally, expect God to direct your every step, these are all decisions on your part, because God has always been looking for men and women who are salt and light, who are change agents of culture, men and women who refuse to bend the knee to business as usual. God has always been looking for cities, what Jesus called, cities on a hill, and those are just simply communities that are filled with men and women who look like Jesus, they're salt and light people. He's willing for this city, our city, the metro Oklahoma City to be that city on a hill, a beacon to the world, a place where kings and nations come to our light, a spiritual epicenter, a spiritual capital to this nation, a city to which the world is drawn. So that's the moment you're living in, that's your context, so rise up and make it a life worth living because He's certainly willing to and by the grace of God, you can do it. We'll see you next time.