Dangerous Success

Do you want to be successful? Who doesn't. But success is dangerous says Jared Wilson:

Not a single one of us wishes, really, for failure. Oh, sure, there are certainly some spiritual masochists out there, Christians who take great pride in the ministry of Isaiah — “I’m losing 90 per cent? I must be doing something right!” — but there’s a reason God provoked Isaiah’s commitment to the mission before giving him his depressing orders. None of us would want to sign up for that.

When we find ourselves in difficult ministries, where the word seems out of season and the soil inordinately hard, despite our sincere and faithful efforts to share the gospel in contextualized ways and love and serve our neighbors with gladness and kindness, many of us battle discouragement, but we at least theologically understand that sometimes God gives and sometimes he takes away.

There is something biblically beautiful, actually, about such littleness. It appears to be the primary mode of thinking of the apostles about themselves. Paul boasts, but he boasts in his weakness. He considers his successes garbage compared to Christ’s glory. It is God’s bigness he is concerned ultimately with, not his own or that of the churches.

So when we are made little, we can find ourselves in the heart of John the Baptist’s prayer, that Jesus would increase and we would decrease. It’s not the ideal place to be in terms of our dreams and ambitions, but relying totally on God’s sovereignty is right where God wants us. It’s not a call to passivity or to excuse-making. But even the most diligent of workers can say that God has called him to be faithful, not successful.

And then God grants many much visible success. Sometimes God’s people succeed greatly at things he hasn’t actually called them to do, but sometimes in his strange wisdom he grants extraordinary, legitimate successes to his children. But with such glories should come many cautions. We all prefer success to failure but, really, success is more dangerous. In failure, we know we rely totally on God’s approval and sustaining arm. In success, it is easy to begin looking around, surveying all the territories claimed, all the peoples gathered, all the ministry renown redounding, and we think, “Well, lookee here. Look what has been built with my talents, my gifts, my skills, my strategies, my visions, my sweat, my sacrifice.”

It is perfectly normal for humans to prefer success to failure. You’d be a weirdo if you didn’t.And yet it is perfectly normal for humans to taint all their successes with the swelling of their big fat heads. You’d be a weirdo if you didn’t.

And so we remember the Holy Spirit, the sovereign breath of God Himself in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), without whom we could not receive one single stinking thing (John 3:27). It is the Spirit who directs our paths while we’re making our big plans (Proverbs 16:9) and hijacks our mission statements (James 4:13-15). Oh, we can produce some very exciting enterprises, we can get a lot of stuff done if we’ll just have that can-do attitude and take-charge spirit and gung-ho personality and yada yada yada. That Babel tower was pretty tall too.

Don’t run ahead of the Lord God. You may find yourself in the midst of a great, booming success and therefore very, very vulnerable.

And the dirty little secret is that you don’t really need it. If God wants you to have it, that’s great. But you don’t need “more” to be satisfied in God, to be fully justified by Christ, to be fully filled by the Spirit. God does not measure success the way we do. So whether you are struggling or succeeding, the best position to take is always that of prayer so that you know how to have little and how to have a lot, how to do “all things” through Christ — not know-how. Only Christ is inexhaustible.

Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.– 1 Corinthians 10:12

Finding Grace in Failures

Good stuff from Joe Thorn - 4 Ways to Find God's Grace Our in Failures

If you haven't figured it out yet let me encourage you to see something that will greatly help you. Not all of your ideas are good. Some of them are bad. And God will often let you flail and fail out there for very good purposes. And when you fail do not lose the opportunity to find grace in the midst of it.

I believe this is especially important for pastors to understand. It's one of the most important lessons I have learned in 16 years of pastoral ministry: failure is to be expected and learned from. I have misspoke, misstepped, and missed the mark in more ways than I can explain here. And failing hurts. Most of us of are afraid of it. Leaders in particular are afraid of failure since it's always a bit more of a public spectacle.

I'm not talking about moral failure that disqualifies someone from the ministry, but ministerial failure. It may sometimes involve sin, but more often it's poor judgment or simply the bad execution of an idea. And while we must always take ownership for our failures, we don't have to be defeated by them. In fact, I have found that there is much grace to be found in failure if I will seek the Lord through it.

Four Ways to Find God's Grace in Our Failures

Our failures remind us that we are not the Savior

When we fail it is a painful and helpful reminder that we are not God. This should be an obvious truth to us all, but in leading we sometimes begin to think that we can do it all. It is tempting to believe that only we can do "it," whatever it is. But our failure can be a means by which we are reminded that we not only need God to go before us and give us success, but also that we need saving even from our best efforts in ministry. We are weak and frail, yet called to serve and lead others. Failure helps us to see this tension and return to and rely on the grace of God for all we need in life and ministry.

Our failures teach us humility

Humility is not a natural character train in us. We are born proud sinners who boast in ourselves and our plans. Humility, on the other hand, is something that God must develop in us. It is grown by the grace of God, and often cultivated through failure. For even when we fail God is at work. We might not have accomplished what we wanted to, or even what God has called us to, but he uses such circumstances to make us more dependent on him, less dependent on ourselves. He helps us to see our smallness in contrast to his greatness and in this the grace of God shines brightly. He loves us anyway. He will use us in spite of ourselves. Here humility grows.

Our failures encourage us to be learners

This is very important for leaders--to remain teachable. When looking for leaders and future church planters in our church humility and teachability are indispensable. Success can breed pride. It's doesn't have to, but it often does. Failure, though, reminds us we have much to learn. It orients us to seek wisdom and help from God and those he has placed around us.

Our failures are used by God to show a better way

Whenever I am asked about what I have learned in church planting and pastoral ministry I always explain that at least 50% of what I know I learned through making mistakes. I have often done things wrong before I've done things right. But this is the grace of failure. We can see very clearly, painfully clearly, that there are things to avoid, fight against, prepare for, and die over. And there are other things worth letting go. Failure always shows us there is a better way.

We will fail. A lot. But God will use all of it for his glory and our good if we are willing to find his grace in our failure.

The Fertilizer of Failure

"Going all in for God isn't something you do once. In fact, you'll probably have a few failures before you get it right. But someday you'll celebrate the failure as much as the success. Failure is the fertilizer that grows character. And character sustains success so it doesn't backfire. Anyone without nay failure is like a plant without any roots or a building without any foundation. Failure is the substructure that supports the superstructure of success."

-Mark Batterson, All In: You Are One Decision Away From A Totally Different Life, pages 126-127

Don't Waste Life's Poop

Okay, that title got your attention, didn't it!  Great insight from Ben Reed at  Life and Theology from a youthful experience working on a pig farm.

One thing that stuck with me from that class was the way that nothing was wasted on the farm. Not even the pigs’ poop.

The poop was piled in a barn, and over the course of a year, the poop would compost, leaving a rich fertilizer that the farmers would use to fertilize the fields that other animals would graze. It was an incredible additive and boost to those fields, giving yields that greatly surpassed the non-fertilized fields. In other words, the poop made the crops grow faster.

Pig poop, though foul-smelling to us humans, contains nutrients that help crops grow really well. After it was harvested and composted (by which time it didn’t stink anymore), it was simply spread across the field in the spring, just before a rain, its nutrients used by the budding crops.

The poop from your past

You’ve got poop in your life. Things you’ve done that you’re not proud of. Things that have been done to you that you wish hadn’t happened. Dreams that you lost, relationships that crumbled. Jobs lost. Marriages destroyed. Addictions that you’re ashamed of. You’ve messed up in a way that you’d hope and pray nobody would ever mess up. You’ve done things…or not done thing…that you never want to repeat.

We typically do one of two things with that pain and suffering:

1. Ignore it and act like it never happened.
2. Wallow in it.

Neither is healthy.

Option 1 leaves us judgmental of others who have real pain, ignorant of our own Pharisaical stench. We’re left with a shallow understanding of our sin and pain…and thus a shallow understanding of God’s goodness and grace. Acting like “poop” never happened wastes our pain.

Option 2 leaves us in a crying, heaping, depressed, self-depracating mess. All of the time. We get stuck in what “could’ve been,” what “should’ve been,” and “who I wish I was,” constantly making ourselves pay for our past mistakes over and over again. OR making others pay for our past mistakes by disengaging from those who love us, and who would love to help. Wallowing in our “poop” wastes our pain.

I’ve got a 3rd option, and I take my cue from the pig poop.

Allow your failures to help someone else.

The way God brought you through the junk can help someone else who, right now, can’t see the light. They’re stuck. They’re in the middle of an addiction or the throes of suffering.
Live a life full of grace because you’ve been graced so much by the King. Live a life of love because you were loved first. Live a life of forgiveness because of the heaping amounts of forgiveness you’ve been given that you can never repay. Live a life of generosity because you’ve been given so much.

Your valleys can become great pastures that others can graze from as they see you living life to the full. (John 10:10)

No need to ignore the past. It’s purpose isn’t to hold you back. No need to wallow in it, either.
Let someone else graze from it.

If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.  And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. – 2 Corinthians 1:6-7

In other words, don't waste your life's pig poop!
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For Those Who Blunder

"The cross is the answer to the biggest blunder in human history." The post that quote is taken from was discussing failures and mistakes in church planting, but the concept is applicable to everyone and everything.

The cross is the answer to the biggest blunder in human history, and it is more than sufficient for any blunders we can make. In fact, the Redeemer of sinners loves to redeem the mistakes forgiven sinners make. He loves to remind us we’re not God. And he wants to teach us from the mistakes we make so we don’t continually break important things that don’t need to be broken.

As the chief of blunderers, I am so glad that this is true!

From: Planting Churches That Last (Part 2) - Study Mistakes - Desiring God