Safe or Significant

2. Which is worse, failing or never trying?

Hopefully we can all agree on this one, but I may be wrong. D.L. Moody once said:

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at something that doesn't really matter.” I couldn't have said it better myself. See it's easy to play it safe and never fail at anything, but then you've never really lived have you? "To live would be an awfully big adventure" are some of the closing lines of one of my favorite films, Hook. To live is to make mistakes, fail, recover, succeed perhaps, but that's not guaranteed.

And who's to say failure is a bad thing? It's really where we grow. That's the nature of this world. If you work out, your muscles are torn down so they develop into strength. So it is by failure that we grow to be better than before. I think of Edison: "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." It is by perseverance that we have significant lives. Think of Frodo and the One Ring compared to the rest of the hobbits of Hobbiton, he is the Hobbit that Elves in great halls would sing of for generations. He lived a dangerous life and because he never gave up he was significant. Significant lives are never safe, but safe lives are never significant. Don't trade what is possible for what is comfortable.

Now some things may simply be failure for some. William Wallace did die, but his bravery liberated Scotland. Realistically speaking, it was because Wallace was not afraid to die that his memory and historical impact will never die. He could have stayed in his village and lived a safe life, but he knew and understood what was possible.

I think of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint and their fellow missionaries in Ecuador. Did they fail? Well, they were killed by the people they came to save. Doesn't sound like a winning situation. Nevertheless, because of the risk they took in going, knowing the dangers, thousands of people have heard the truth of Jesus Christ. That is a huge win for something that really matters.

Always be willing to fail, because "to live would be an awfully big adventure".