Chuck Swindoll | The Discipline of Handling Failure

what I'm going to speak on today I have never once heard addressed in public throughout my graduate years in study I never once heard the word mentioned it was not something that was even considered worthy of addressing I suppose even though life is shaped by this very truth I want to talk about I came across a statement that I resisted for a number of years until it came home to roost and to live in my life in a in a number of different ways that I'll close my message with today the subject I want to talk about is failure the number one fear of most of you who fill this room today I doubt that you've ever heard a talk on failure the discipline of handling failure the importance of knowing that it is coming that you will go through times of it and you will have to learn in the midst of it that it is one of God's ways of maturing us to become the women and men he would have us be the statement I began with that I resisted years ago and now embrace it is doubtful God can use anyone greatly until he has hurt him deeply my longtime friend Jim Dobson tells a moving story in one of his better books that I want to read to you it's a true story he writes I was recently invited to conduct a lecture series for faculty and students at a seminary it seemed appropriate that I talked to these future ministers about the subject of inferiority since they would soon be dealing with many such problems in their own congregations during the course of my first address I relate a story of Danny not his real name Danny was a distressed high school student whose grief over his own inadequacy became intolerable and eventually turned to anger after I'd spoken that day I received the following anonymous letter dear dr. Dobson I am one of the Danny's you spoke of in Chapel today believe me for I have experienced this as long as I can remember it is a miserable way to live yes I am a student at the seminary but that doesn't make the problem any less acute through the years particularly the last five I have periodically gained a revived hope that somehow this problem can be overcome go away or something then to my great disappointment I find it is still very much a part of me that's when I lose hope of ever conquering it I want to be a minister of the gospel and feel that this is God's will at the same time I'm aware of the paralyzing effect this deep problem has on me I want so badly to be adequate so that I could better serve God and others I wish I could talk with you even for a short time however I realize your busy schedule at any rate thank you for coming to the seminary sincerely a troubled seminarian Dobson continues since this broken young man had not identified himself publicly I read and discussed his letter with a student body the following morning many of the 300 young men who were present seemed moved by his words for some it undoubtedly reflected their own predicament as well following my lecture that morning the troubled seminarian came up and introduced himself to me he stood with tears streaming down his cheeks as he spoke of the great sense of inadequacy he had experienced since early childhood later an administrator of the seminary told me that this young man was the last member of the student body whom we would have ever expected to feel that way as I have observed so many times this sense of inferiority is the best-kept secret of the year it is harbored deep inside where it can gnaw on the soul sitting in the audience that same day was another student with the same kind of problems however he did not write me a letter he never identified himself in any way but three weeks after I left he hanged himself in the basement of his apartment one of the four men with whom he lived called long distance to inform me of the tragedy he stated deeply shaken that the dead students roommates were so unaware of his problems that he hanged there five days before he was missed sitting in this audience today are men and women who can identify with Danny but no one around you knows it it's certainly doubtful your parents are aware of it it's quite unlikely you have shared it even with a close friend and certainly not with any of the faculty at Wheaton College but it's there nevertheless you fear failure if there's something you really would have to list on your list of fears failure would be near the top if not there at the top tragedy in life lack of adequacy unable to succeed an inability to perform to accomplish to read your reach your goals I remember while president of Dallas seminary I had a student come in and begged me to change one of his grades it was the only B he had in the four years as he earned his master of theology at the school I told him I couldn't do that my integrity wouldn't allow it and I I understood I said frankly it is the only B that you have made he said I know but my parents expected me to make all A's and they won't even come to the graduation if I'm not the valedictorian and I know that one B will keep that from happening I said I really can't do that I'll call your parent no no he said don't call my parents sure enough the B stayed on his transcript he didn't walk and his parents didn't show up for graduation he saw himself with one be on his four-year course at a very difficult school to make those kind of grades as failure he couldn't bear the thought of facing his father not having a perfect academic record truth be told this fear sweeps across all who are highly driven strong hearted people nevertheless the Bible is full of those who failed great people who failed allow me just a brief little Abraham the father of faith failed when he went into Hagar and the product was Ishmael who gave them grief and still to this day there is a conflict between Ishmael and Isaac Moses failed when he struck the rock and anger and it so displeased God that he wasn't allowed to go into the Promised Land clearly a failure he failed earlier in murdering an Egyptian and hiding him in the sand Moses the one who led the Exodus Joseph failed in not building a relationship with his siblings accepting the preferential treatment of his father and it was so severe that the boys ganged up and you know the story sold him into slavery just to get him out of their life David could never win over King Saul even though he was the king elect even though he was Saul's confidante and personal musician David and Saul could never hit it off it was Saul's problem but David could never bridge that relational gap between the two of them Hosea lost his wife Hosea the Prophet Habakkuk was swarming with doubts and serious unrest regarding the will of God Nehemiah had enemies throughout the time he was building the wall around Jerusalem he failed to win them over John the Baptizer questioned the integrity of Jesus the Messiah while he was in prison Paul could never bring himself to understand Barnabas Barnabas his plea to accept John Mark to travel with them on the second journey and they had such a strong sysm between the two that Paul and Silas went in one direction for that journey Barnabas and Mark sailed off into the sea Barnabas and Paul would never work again whether or not you see that as a failure the point is it is a relational breakdown we cannot win them all through it all we are to learn not only through our successes but through times when things do not work out well my attention goes back to Paul as I go for some scriptural basis for what I'm saying listen to his words as he wrote them to Corinth chapter two first letter verses one two three when I came to you brothers I did not come with a superiority of speech or a wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of God now listen closely I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified and I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling this is the Apostle Paul when I was with you people in Corinth by the way he is fresh off a thens which proved to be an evangelism failure for Paul only a small group of people would even listen to his message while he was at Athens and in the backwash of Athens he comes to Corinth and he admits to the people when he writes them later when I stood before you I stood in weakness and in fear and in much trembling if that isn't bad enough the autobiographical section of second Corinthians tells us even more of Paul's distressed spirit chapter 1 verse 8 of 2nd Corinthians he admits we do not want you to be unaware brothers of our affliction which came to us in Asia that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength so much so we despaired even of life I don't know how you interpret that but I read that literally we came to the place when we were at that spot in our lives we wondered if we could go on he wasn't successful every day wasn't just a brilliant delightful day of praise and joy he awoke the morning depressed he turned in at night discouraged he despaired even of life and it's not a one-time-only chapter three verse five of second Corinthians not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything is coming from ourselves our adequacy is from God Paul admits I'm not adequate I've got challenges in front of me that I can't match at my own strength they're more than I'm able to do chapter 4 verses 8 & 9 we are afflicted in every way perplexed persecuted struck down and you're all familiar with the long list of things he mentions in 2nd Corinthians 11 I draw this from the message listen to the list I've been jailed more often beaten up more times than I can count at death's door time after time I have been flogged five times with the Jews 39 lashes beaten by Roman rods three times pummeled by rocks shipwrecked three times immersed in the open sea for a night and a day in hard traveling year in and year out I've had to Ford rivers fend off robbers struggled with friends struggle with foes I've been at risk in the city at risk in the country endangered by desert Sun and sea storm and betrayed by those who thought I thought were my brothers I've known drudgery and hard labor many a long and lonely night without sleep many a missed meal blasted by the cold naked to the weather and that's not half of it when you throw in the daily pressures of all the churches if I have to brag about myself I'll brag about the humiliations that make me like Jesus it's that part that throws us a curve most of us have been raised to do our best nothing wrong with that to reach high goals nothing wrong with that and we have achieved many of our dreams many of our goals though you are young you find yourself a part of this student body and there is a sense of unspoken pride being here let's face it so how can you possibly admit the sense a sense of inadequacy how could you share with anybody the fear of failure the thought of not making it through this school what you may not realize is the whole point of my message today God knows the way you take when he has tried you you will come forth as gold let me put it in other words when you have gone through tragedy heartsickness a broken spirit disappointment discouragement disillusionment academic inadequacy he knows the way you take when he has tried you you will come forth as gold now we love it the job rights that we love it the job model that it's a whole different picture when we're asked to believe it and accept it and model it personally now I'm going to do something I rarely do in any message I'm going to make myself the example because I know my own failures better than anyone and because I have nothing to hide I want to come down to a level of reality with all of you you only see me for three days I'm in and out like a flash and you you may know of me or something I have said or donner or written or whatever and and you are up probably too impressed I'm guessing that and you and you probably are thinking I mean the guys got a downhill slide kind of life he's got it made I mean how fortunate can you be to have reached some of these goals and done what he's done stop it stop thinking like that I am here by the grace of God if you knew the full story of my life you would not be at all impressed you'd be surprised that I'm where I am today now to give you a little background I'm the youngest and the family of three I have an older brother who is brilliant valedictorian in high school winter rice university could have been a concert pianist wound up being a missionary in Argentina for 32 years and is a magnificent believer in Christ he loved the Lord long before I did we shared rooms together I remember waking up in the middle of the night and looking over and I'd see him kneeling by his bed praying and I think Great Scott why couldn't he have played football or done something you know that's fun I mean I got a room with Martin Luther here is a and and and and he would bring home the most boring report cards you can and I had variety in my report cards but he had he had he had him I remember when he made anything less than an a at Rice he came home in tears as a freshman and my dad sort of chided him which was so like my dad my sister wonderfully popular wonderfully gifted to this day so well known among the women of faith ministry and I came along I'm the baby in the family of three I was unplanned I I was as my mother put it a mistake that's nice to hear well here I am mistake or not but I couldn't I couldn't match up to my brother I couldn't academically I couldn't match up to my sister I've known the pain of parental favoritism my mother absolutely adored my brother my father was crazy about my sister my granddad happened to be the most significant male adult in my growing up years while growing up I I admit to you that there were sibling comparisons that I live with why doesn't your report card look like your brother's I want to say because I'm not my brother what why have you done the things your sister has done and I couldn't match that so growing up I felt like a failure as a teenager I began to stutter late years in middle school we called it then junior high school I got into senior high school and believe me I couldn't put four or five words together without stuttering dick nimi who was the speech teacher at Mill B High School in Houston said to me one day I want you to be on our debate team my response was mapable me you want me on you to the debate said yeah this summer I'm going to teach you how to speak to this day I struggle son was stuttering he taught me that my mind was running ahead of my mouth I now have the opposite problem you may have noticed but back then I had that problem and so I was I was I felt the sting of a disability the public embarrassment of stuttering as a young husband I almost ruined our marriage for the first ten years I tried to make Cynthia just like me you can think of anything worse than a female me and and Cynthia would say I'm not you I know it but you need to do so it so and I I came down on her and I about drove her out of my life I remember when she told me in New England we were struggling through a church ministry that wasn't working I'll tell you about that failure in a minute and she said to me I'd like you not to say publicly that we're partners because we're not I said yo we are no we're not yes we are no we're not you need somebody to do your dishes you need somebody to fix your meals somebody to have your babies someone to have sex with you need somebody that you can show is your wife but we're not partners she was right it led to four or five very difficult years of counseling for me to learn what it meant to love my wife in fact to come to the place where I realized her value in God's eyes is absolutely beyond description and to see the value she can have in my life but I was a I was a young failure in my marriage as a young pastor early on I was a poor example of a leader and I was at a church in New England only two years it's the longest decade of my life two years I was in Massachusetts and the church never went anywhere I remember one July for service we had there were eight people present in the church service four of them were swindles that is not a successful ministry I came to Irving Texas and then I went on to a church in California and and things changed as a man of faith I've not been all that impressive I have gone kicking and screaming into every ministry God would help me go into I am NOT the visionary in the family Cynthia is I think about how to reach the person next door for Christ she thinks about how to reach the land of India I resisted the thought of going on the radio she said I think we can do that I told her I didn't know how to do it she said I can help she is the reason it's been successful though she does not ever get the credit the ministry that now will reach 30 years and people give me credit for that and all they get from me as a voice and then she takes it from there and makes it work through her staff I was reluctant to begin but writing I thought who would want to read something I wrote and because of the the confidence of other people around me I began to write and I am to this day amazed anyone reads something I would write I'm honest about this and there's something about writing that is just so demanding I I love the line of one of the Brits who says speaking makes a ready man reading abroad man writing an exact man to be so exact when you write then you it's hard work and I've got enough to do without doing that and here we are over these years written these things and I I find myself just amazed that God would use something I'd write got a call while I was it's Fullerton California and it was from the president and the board of the of the the chair of the board of the Delta seminary and they they wanted me to come to be the president I laughed I thought it was one of the guys in the back office calling me is give me a break I said no four times Cynthia said I think we ought to say yes I thought I don't need the Holy Spirit I've got you you know yeah and she was right I was wrong I should have said yes so reluctantly I went that wasn't qualified I wasn't adequate I wasn't an academic you've learned that by now I couldn't hold a candle to the brains of these people over here that are teaching you I admire them we need them but that's not me that's not my contribution and I realized the school one to shepherd they had enough eggheads oh I should have probably said akka Domitian they you know - headed up bright guys they needed some real guys and I remember one time I hugged one of our faculty members he wrote me a fact I told him it whispered in his ear after you've written a great big tome on Leviticus I mean he wrote more on Leviticus than Moses knew about Leviticus great big book and we had given him the book publisher was there anybody applauded and I was hugging him tank thanking him and I told him I loved him he wrote me a note later he says never in my adult life have I ever had another man put his arms around me and tell me that he loves me thank you for telling me you love me I couldn't believe it but now I can now I can and I could do that because I had nothing to prove and nothing to lose I mean look at where I'd come from so we go to church started in in Texas and I want to quit two or three times in the midst of it it got so tough I laid by Cynthia one night and she said to me we can't quit I says honey I can't go on it's absolutely beyond me she said I know that's why it's gonna be so good and I thought go to sleep and and she said you you can do it you can do it and this is subject next next month we'll celebrate 10 years we've just built a sanctuary that I just can't believe that people come to listen and to participate in worship but the worst part of all forgive me for going a little longer but I got to tell you this part I blew it with my youngest son I was too busy publishing books too busy on the road too busy speaking everywhere else and somehow Chuck slipped through my life Cynthia reminded me of it when she said you used to play a lot of ball with Curt but you don't play much ball with with Chuck I said well he doesn't like to play ball she says you don't know you don't play ball with him he would like to have time with you and I ignored it and after a while he drifted and and he sank away from me I couldn't reach him some of the hardest of my life that I went through and all the while Sundy kept coming still preaching still ministering still inadequate uh he fell in love with a lovely girl and he wanted by one of these hotshot motorcycles and it would you know in the real world they called him a crotch rocket because they just roam you get to 60 in about two seconds and I thought the kid will kill himself so I said I'll tell you what why don't you and I build you a Harley so hey why not so I said be my wedding gift to you so they we get the Harley we build it all we put it together and you know the chaplain has a Harley I mean is that good or what the chaplains got a Hall all right so so Chuck Chuck and Jenny roar off on their honeymoon and on a Harley she's on the back he's he's on the front I think Lord what am i Doug and then I said to Cynthia I'd like to have one of those so we went down to Harley shop we were looking at him and she got on the back and I'm on the front and I'm sitting there acting like I'm on a road and she says what are we going to do if somebody comes and I said just tell them we're Jim and Shirley Dobson that's all you got to do of course they don't know who they are either so anyway long and short of it is the Harley's became the connection with my son and I'll never forget being on the on the on the road with my my adult son realizing this is time for me to make it right and we pulled our Harley's over an Old Hickory fence and we put the kickstands down and I put my arms around him and I said son I'm sorry I want you to know that I love you with my whole heart I was gone too much you slip through my hands and but never out of my heart and I failed you as a dad but I want you to know I could not love you more would you please forgive me and he said I forgive you he said this is settled today that led to Cynthia my realizing how far we've missed it with all four of our kids as recently as last summer we spent weeks working through that and finally set with all four of our kids to tell them that we had failed we were sorry I've never really shared that story publicly but I thought you need to hear that because the guy you see sitting here three days and then scooting off on appointee to Dallas is going to leave you thinking that lives kind of been a Easy Street what you don't know is that the best lessons I've learned I've learned through inadequacy and failure disappointment and heartbreak and forgiveness by the grace of God I've come to the place where I no longer fear failure and I've come to the place where I will be always grateful for God's grace to forgive but I don't measure up to my unrealistic standard please men and women please understand only God is adequate you're not only God is perfect you're not only Christ can set goals of that high and reach them you can't you do your best but I can promise you in the future there will be days you will take a ride with your boy or you will be sitting face-to-face with your mom and you'll be saying things that you need to say to build back a bridge that your pride has broken down or perhaps with your father or maybe one of your brothers or sisters the good news is that God in His grace uses us warts and all and I thank you for your willingness today and through this week to listen to one who is not much of an example even though people think I am now you know it's unlike Paul Harvey the rest of the story let's pray father thank you for these important and significant moments together thank you for such rapt attention from these dear students and faculty members who don't even know me thank you for their their great hearts the desire to serve you and and to be your your man or woman in this world that's long since walked away from you use us as real people not perfect models teach us that in the midst of love and forgiveness and understanding and even failure and inadequacy your grace shines through and becomes sufficient thank you for that especially in the lovely name of Jesus I pray everybody said you're watching W etn TV broadcasting service of Wheaton College for a copy of this program please call the media resources department of Wheaton College at seven five two five zero six one

Channel: wheatoncollege

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Keywords: wheaton, college, illinois, Wheaton College (College/University), Wheaton College Chapel, Chapel (Building Function), Edman Memorial Chapel, Christianity (Religion), Charles R. Swindoll (Author), Fall Special Services

Id: ER9069GR8qA

Length: 34min 14sec (2054 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 22 2015