Holding on Through Failure and Success - Part 2

To think of defeat as being an impostor is easy to accept. But to consider success as an impostor is hard to swallow. Very few people set themselves up to fail because success is a primary objective. However success as well as failure has the power to corrupt. Success can give birth to disregarding the rules for a healthy, godly life.

Success can blind a person to boundaries that were earlier a guiding force in life. Success can create an illusion of being invulnerable to failure. Rudyard Kipling's poem, Rewards and Fairies, regarded success as being an impostor whenever it has the alluring capacity to erase from consciousness the need for God.

The Apostle Paul, speaking to the church at Rome, prayed that God, who gives endurance and encouragement, would create such unity of heart and mind that each believer would give him recognition and praise for all they have, whether a little or in abundance. This attitude sees success or failure from God's perspective.

Holding on Through Failure and Success - Part 1

Former Senator Bill Bradley, who also played professional basketball for several years, quoted Rudyard Kipling in his book, Values of the Game. Kipling viewed  success and failure, triumph and defeat as impostors. Defeat and failure can negatively mark a person's identity just as the deceptiveness of success can trigger self-destructive behaviors.

          A prominent pastor was charged with sexual misconduct with two women from his church. Those charges were the tip of the iceberg of what was to follow, for they exposed the limitation of self-control and of splitting one's life into opposite moral poles, swinging form immoral behavior to pasturing God's people.

          God intended for leadership to be used for his glory rather than for satisfying an immoral appetite. According to  Bradley, all humans have the capacity for success and self-destruction. Yet God's mercy reaches to the pit of failure or the height of success. His unfailing love never lets go of even the most ardent sinner.