FACING FAILURES GRACIOUSLY!!!

 Australian cricket team is known as the worst losers. They will do anything to win a cricket match. Sledging , cheating, putting pressure on umpires, playing out of their skin- on the verge of losing they will pull up every trick under the hat. Ask a Australian cricketer and he will say, we don't like losing, we were trained to win. Debatable philosophy on field.

But off the field. on life’s race, failures are inevitable. Failures will come and will test what metal we are made off. Our response to failures determines our Character. There are well known quotes like:

-Failures are stepping stones to success.

-No great success was ever achieved without failure: Thomas alva Edison 10,000 attempts to create a light bulb.Etc. etc

But no other quote is more powerful than this one” the mother of all truths”...

It goes like this from Romans 8:28” And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose”

Meditate the depth in this verse. Someone asked” what is more important than one’s life”.The other replied ”the cause for which one lives”.Failures have a purpose, but that can only be seen from the eyes of God. You and I may not have a podium finish all the time in life, but then faced with failures you can trust God to write your ending. Always have God write the ending for every situation in life. We tend to worry about the battle at hand, but God looks at winning the final war. So its important to not see temporary momentary loses but look towards permanent everlasting gains. Lose the battle (may be Yes), but win the war, (oh yeah hallelujah!)

 Reminds me of the final volume written by Sir Winston Churchill about the  final years of the 2nd world war. The overriding impression I received as I read it was that the allies knew exactly when they were going to win the war. And although it didn’t always go according to plan the fact was that they had a plan – and would make adjustments to the plan as they went. Churchill, along with the American and Russian leaders that worked closely with him, knew when Hitler’s and the Japanese nation’s demise was going to happen. And they then continued to work towards the fulfilment of that plan. They never considered the possibility of defeat. It was a detailed and well executed plan that we can now read in the history books.

And life is very much like that. I know for a fact that throughout my lifetime there are innumerable battles that I have lost – but my concentration is not on the battles. I want to make sure that I position myself with God(Joshua 5:13-14) so that at the end of my life God will be able to clearly declare – and it will be proved by the legacy that I leave behind – that I have in fact won the war.

May we ever be ready to face failures by the grace of God, for only God knows what He is about.(the truth renaissance poem)

When God wants to drill a man and thrill a man and skill a man when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part when he yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man that all the world shall be amazed watch his methods watch his ways how he ruthlessly perfects Whom He royally elects how he hammers him and hurts him and with mighty blows converts him into trial shapes of clay which only God understands While his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands how he bends but never breaks When his good he undertakes how he uses whom he chooses and which every purpose fuses him by every act induces him to try his splendour out God knows what he's about!