January 2021- Wk 4 Devotional

 The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.

Proverbs 24:16

 

Something I’ve been thinking on the past couple of days is how hard it must be for people having grown up in the age of social media. In many ways social media has allowed people to fabricate a persona through the quotes they re-post or pictures they share. People’s social media feeds typically consist of a stream of success and celebrations of people’s accomplishments. I have a friend that posts “kick pics.” He has epic pictures of him in iconic landmarks or majestic nature landscapes doing some kind of kick. While people celebrate and praise him for the picture and his martial art ability one of the things people don’t ever see or think about are all the bloopers. The failed attempts to get the picture.

 

We live in a culture that celebrates success without wanting to acknowledge or remember the failures it took to get to success. Many of the great innovators and inventors of the modern age talk about how their success was borne on the backs of a hundred failures. From Thomas Edison to Elon Musk the great inventions and accomplishments of these men were the result of sweat, blood and tears. A thousand failures, a thousand sleepless nights filled with angst, regret and pain. But perseverance through the pain and the grit to keep getting up is what resulted in inventions like the light bulb.

 

Imagine a world where everyone played it safe and never experience failure. Where no one tried something new. Where no one ever took a risk and got hurt. Any one that has ever learned how to ride a bike or a skateboard can attest to the pains of learning to ride. They’ve got the scars and stories to tell about their failure but also their persistence to not give up.

 

What challenges and hurdles do you face that you may be avoiding? Are you willing to take the risk to try something new? Are you willing to break the mold and challenge yourself to grow by leaning into the pain? Pain and failure is momentary and part of life. We all will experience it, it’s what we learn and how we get up from our failures that determine our character and make the celebration of success more sweet.