It’s the perfect headline, and it was almost true. I’ve never struggled to write anything as much as I struggled to write about failure. What you’re reading right now was written with a hearty chorusing of, “Humbug!”, slamming of laptops, and the fluttering of papers dejectedly tossed from their place on my desk. Frustration was the name of the game.

I just wanted to quit and accept that I’d failed because certainly a fifth draft was not going to bring my horrible word salad up to standard. I would have given up if my mom wasn’t hovering over my shoulder right now as I type this! I don’t know if I’m happy she’s here or if I wished she’d let me stop.

But she’s here because she’s not going to let me fail. She gets it—everyone’s faced failures and lows. It’s easy to just let despair win, but as a child of God, you are called to press on through trials towards the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14)!

Spotting False Identity: Failure Style

Failure feels horrible but remains inevitable. It’s normal if you just want to lie down, stare at the ceiling, and wallow for a while. It’s even normal to have a whole pity party down there, recite your woes, and invite misery and all its companions.

There’s something awful yet comforting about wallowing in self-pity. Why get up and try again? After all, why would anything get better if it’s not better already? That’s the whole problem: The lie we believe in those moments is that failure is the end. The reality is, it’s only the end if you let it be!

Failure at first seems easy to spot. It’s simply when you don’t succeed and those who constantly don’t succeed are those who are failures. This is incredibly wrong. 

No modern considers Thomas Edison a failure since he failed to create the lightbulb 10,000 times. This example reminds us that we must not define ourselves by our failures. What sets Edison apart as someone successful is that he didn’t let those 10,000 failures keep him from pushing onward.

However, many people get trapped in the midst of the 10,000 failures. They’re stuck in the Slough of Despond like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress and can’t seem to get out of its thick mire while doubts encircle them about their worth (Bunyan). There is hope for those stuck in the Slough, just like there was for Christian, but it is not found in what the world has to offer.

To truly understand the trap of failure, we need to understand what society wrongly holds as success. Success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, so failure is not accomplishing that purpose. The real question becomes: What is the purpose that one should strive to accomplish?

And this is where the culture gets it wrong. Society aims at achieving autonomy and looks down upon those who cannot create at least some semblance of autonomy. They pity those who can’t seem to work hard enough to reach self-reliance, those who, like Christian, need help to get out of the Slough even though help is the only way for anyone to escape the clutches of self-pity, doubts, and despair (Bunyan).

Defeating Failure’s Defeat

Needing help is part of being human. No matter how much they’d like to be when things are going their way, facing defeat makes humans suddenly painfully aware of a fact they like to forget; We are not all-powerful beings that can do whatever we wish on our own, no matter how much we’d like to be—or how much society tries to tell us we should be.

The first step in defeating despair is realizing that you need help. Trying to beat failure yourself is nigh impossible, especially in the heart of defeat. You don’t have the perspective to see past what you’re currently going through, but God does. Believers go to God with their failings because He is in control of everything. They commit their plans to the Lord because He is the one who establishes them (Proverbs 16:3). God also helps with failure through His word. Believers can be encouraged that when they are weak, He is strong (2 Corinthians 12:10). His power is made perfect in weakness and His grace is sufficient for the believer (2 Corinthians 12:9). Praying in the midst of your failures helps you to set your mind on God instead of on your circumstances. God has good works prepared for you to do and He will give you the power to do them when the time comes (Ephesians 2:10).

Help from those around you can also assist in defeating a wrong view of failure. I mentioned how my mom kept me accountable and cheered me on while I wrote this post. Find someone to help you see outside of your situation and can offer helpful insight into how to overcome whatever seemingly impossible task you’re facing. That is why Hebrews 10:44-45 exhorts believers not to neglect meeting together. The body of Christ is stronger together. A hand can’t function without being connected to the arm and the arm being connected to the shoulder and so on and so forth. People need each other because no one person knows everything, but a community of people knows lots of things. With help, you have someone to lift you up when you fall instead of being left to pick yourself up on your own (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10). If you find someone to help you while going through failure, you’ll find that there are solutions and paths to success you would have never seen on your own.

The second step in dealing with failure and all the emotions that come along with it is changing your view of failure. Failure is largely viewed in a negative light because the western world focuses on self-service instead of community and God. It shows dependence on others instead of self-reliance. Besides showing a need for community and God, failure also leads to disappointment. Nobody starts writing a book because they don’t want to finish. It’s easy to get stuck in the fact that you haven’t finished that book or the dozens of others you’ve started and believe that you’ll never finish anything. However, it misses the gift that is failure. Failure will point you in the right direction if you treat it as a guide. Maybe you can’t finish stories because you lose motivation after the first few chapters. This failure shows you that you need to change your approach so that you can push through a lack of motivation. It tells you that you need to develop more discipline. Focus on learning w hy you failed instead of that you failed. Then, you can use your failing to correct your method.

Failure also shows God’s sovereignty. Maybe you never finish that book you’ve been struggling to finish, but you churn out a lot of shorter stories through practicing discipline in writing. That’s still something valuable. You can finish things, but perhaps God is calling you to write in short form. Not every writer is called to be a novelist. God’s plans are not our plans (Isaiah 55:8-9). In His infinite wisdom, He sees exactly where He’s taking you. Every failure pushes you closer to developing the skills you need to bring glory to God. Because God’s plans are so different than yours, believers must learn to trust God instead of leaning to their own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). Believers place their trust in God’s perfect plan for their lives and know that He will direct their path (Proverbs 3:6). This bigger perspective of failure will allow you to endure trials with joy because you know that it will produce steadfastness, making you perfect, complete, and lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4).

Sum Up

If you find yourself bogged down by failure in your writing, remember that failure doesn’t have to be the end of your story. You can use failure to determine the problem with your approach. The more you practice and fail the more progress you’ll make. Take each rejection with the mindset that God is leading you closer to the good works He has planned for you (Ephesians 2:10). God wants you to fix your eyes on Him for His peace instead of fixing your eyes on your failings (Isaiah 26:3). Pray, get some outside perspective and encouragement from others, and ultimately trust that God is working all things for your good because you are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). God is powerful enough to turn your failures into success!