Murray Warmath, former head coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers, once said about his team’s pathetic win-loss record: “If lessons are learned in defeat, our team is getting a great education.”
Do you feel like you too are getting nothing but a “good education”? Do you feel like you’re knocked down more times than you deserve, crossing the goal line fewer times than you should? We all go through stages of defeat — sometimes stages of extended defeat — but Warmath is right: this is where lessons are learned; it’s where we get the best education.
Bill Gates once said, “Success is a lousy teacher.” One of the world’s most successful men understands this principle: You learn more from your losses than you learn from your victories … that is, if you’re willing to take the time to evaluate your failures.
Ever preach a bad sermon? When it happens, how do you respond? Do you shrug your shoulders and say, “Oh well; guess I wasn’t ‘on’ today.”? Do you ask, “I wonder what was wrong with those people today?” Or do you relive it moment by painful moment, analyzing the introduction, scrutinizing the outline, reframing your major thoughts?
It’s the sermons that fall flat that often teach us our most valuable lessons in preparation and dependence on the leadership of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, I am thankful for the sermons that went awry. In the long run, they’ve helped me preach more effectively and more consistently.
This principle works in every area of life, if you’re willing to learn from your past mistakes — jobs that didn’t work out, relationships that failed, ministry projects that fell short of expectations, and on and on. We need to get in the habit of using mistakes as a foundation for a good education. Failure is a good teacher if you’re willing to pay attention to what it says.
Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord. (Proverbs 16:20)
