Failing Is OkaySample

PURSUING THE NEW “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” Herman Melville My job involves interacting with inventors. When challenged to solve a problem inventors arrive at novel solutions. Look around you. Anything you touch has had hundreds of hours of creative thinking, prototyping, troubleshooting, (and marketing!), before it got to you. If you were to chat with the inventor he would tell about the many times he was tempted to quit out of sheer frustration because the solution was not forthcoming. When the solution finally arrived, he became the owner of a novel, patentable idea. There is immense pride and satisfaction! An invention is to the inventor what a new born baby is to a mother. Our Creator God is always doing a new thing. In Isaiah 43:16-19, God asks His people to forget the former things associated with the miraculous deliverance from Egypt, the very things He previously commanded them to remember every year. God wants them to perceive the new thing He was doing amidst them. He urges them to stop resting on past glory and join in the new thing He has begun. God knows well that though nostalgia feels good for a while, it can paralyze the pursuit of the new and different. Do you feel that your career is going nowhere and that your best days are behind you? Maybe it’s time for you to see the new thing that God is doing and prayerfully consider your options. If you are in a leadership role trying to forge a new direction, give your team opportunities to contribute ideas. Grant them the freedom to question ‘what is’ to pave the way for ‘what can be’. There must be constant introspection within the organization to identify the “former things” that needs letting go to make way for the new, fresh and the original. Praise God that His grace is ever-present to catch us when we fail and show us new things we otherwise would have been blind to. Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for always moving us from good to better to best.