Our Successful Failures

What is failure? 
For that matter what is success? 
I think the determination of either is defined by our standards in measuring of them.

The whole of our lives is brief, and what we see of  our lives, of our world, is only a glimpse, and not at all the sum of things.

Neither success or failure can be determined with the mere observation of a moment in the framework of eternity. Especially when we consider that those moments, all moments, are seen through the narrow lens of our own experience and perspectives.

These things we cannot fully know, even of ourselves. It is not ours to know. God alone can truly know a man's heart which is deceitful above all things.

Just as understanding where a person is truly at, requires an understanding of how they have come to arrive where they are at, so then the journey and the heart too must be a factor in the equation. A difficult task when applied to our own lives, perhaps impossible in the lives of others.

So, while we may feel inclined to judge, by our own perspectives and standards, we are ultimately unfit to determine what is success or failure, for ourselves or others. As, even that is tainted by our own limited experiences and knowledge.

What then, in the end, is failure or success?

I suppose we may never fully know in this lifetime. That will have to suffice, and it is probably best, for what may seem to be the greatest successes, may in the end become the greatest failures, only time will tell. The opposite is true as well and either is only one step in the process.

How we choose to respond to anyone or any given situation it would seem is primarily a reflection of of our own values and perspectives. A reflection of sorts about the strength we rely on as well as the depth and sources where our hope is truly found.

We can only do our best and God must do the rest...

Success is sometimes simply pressing on in faith during the hard times, and staying the course in the good. Failure, the surrender of hope to hopelessness, and resigning one's self to defeat.

The recognition of our failures by our own strengths not at all an option, but rather required for our growth, may be one unavoidable step of many in our journey.

So, what is failure or success? 

The complexity of life has shown me that each may only be an inseparable part of the other through the life long refining process.
I have found that the simplicity of black and white is a luxury afforded to youth, more than the wisdom of the experienced who find life to be more along the lines of varying shades of grey.

Perhaps from a finite vantage point, neither success or failure, as such might be known or even relevant independent of the other. Maybe then, from the infinite vantage point, failure and success aren't all the issues we should be concerned with nearly as much as our continued reliance on God to see us through what we may see as either, neither or both.

It was once said to me that the Christian life is not a product, but a process. 

I have to think that just might be true.

Think about it.
d(-_-)b