Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners—of whom I am the worst.
—1 Timothy 1:15
Noting that financial wizard Warren Buffett allegedly won’t do business with anyone unless they have failed at least twice in business, my friend Gene Shelburne asks, “Have you ever considered failure to be a positive way to learn?”
Shelburne wonders if the apostle Paul would ever have become the Bible’s strongest advocate for grace if he had not first been “the chief of sinners.”
He doubts that the apostle Peter would have become chief spokesman for Jesus unless his denials of the Lord taught him—as nothing else could—that “Christ died for sinners.”
“We’d give anything to take back a word, to remake a choice, to undo a deed,” writes Shelburne. This wise minister advises that instead of wallowing in regret, we learn from our mistakes, because, “Now we know how not to do it.”
Failure is fatal only if you fail to learn from it.