No Encores Please

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:5-10 ESV).

Someone has said, “There is nothing wrong with mistakes. Just don’t respond with encores!” In the book by Robert Jeffress, The Road Most Traveled – Releasing the Power of Contentment in Your Life, the author describes what he has called “Big-Bird Theology.” If you have ever watched the big yellow bird on Sesame Street, you know that whenever Big Bird makes a mistake, he has a standard reply: “Everybody makes mistakes.” And, while that’s true, there are some essentials that must be applied to this philosophy if we are to improve our behavior.

First, rationalization of our mistakes can cause denial and repetition of our sin. Too many people follow the adage of if at first you don’t succeed, don’t admit you tried! Charles Kettering of General Motors, one of this century’s great creative minds, had this to say on the value of learning to fail.

“An inventor is simply a person who doesn’t take his education too seriously. You see, from the time a person is six years old until he graduates from college he has to take three or four examinations a year. If he flunks, he is out. But an inventor is almost always failing. He tries and fails maybe a thousand times. If he succeeds once then he’s in. These two things a diametrically opposite. We often say the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep trying and failing until he learns what will work.”

That’s the center of the truth John had for us to learn in today’s verse. We ought not to deny the truth of our failures. Learn from them and move on.

Second, failure is not final. When the musical hit Oklahoma! opened in New Haven in 1943, Michael Todd, then famous producer and impresario said: “No legs, no jokes, no chance.” It was a pronouncement of certain failure. However, Oklahoma! opened in New York on March 31, 1943, and was immediately acclaimed as one of the greatest musicals of all time, and ran for 2,248 performances. A few days after Muhammad Ali first lost to Joe Fraser the world’s heavyweight boxing title he was interviewed on a television talk show. He said something that ought to have grabbed everyone, though the sports writers barely acknowledged it. Ali said, “In a way it was good that I was defeated. Real victory comes in being able to accept defeat.” Certainly he had feeling of regret and disappointment, but he understood the principle of being able to continue in the face of defeat. Whatever your failure, there is another chance for you in the grace of God. Failure is not final. Receive His forgiveness and keep trying!