On December 9, 1914, fire swept through the factories owned by Thomas Edison in West Orange, New Jersey. The damage totaled millions of dollars. Practically everything of Edison’s was destroyed, including journals and records of works in progress.

Edison was not a young man at the time this happened. Many people sent condolences and notes of sympathy, expecting that this tragedy would prompt his retirement.

Edison’s response? “I am 67, but I’m not too old to make a fresh start.”

It’s not too late for your fresh start, either. It doesn’t matter how old you are. Neither does it matter how much you have lost in the fires of the past. Today is a new day, a fresh start is yours for the taking.

I have friends who entered the mission field in their sixties. I also have friends who have launched new businesses after retirement. Chuck Swindoll planted a new church in Texas at the age of 64. My own dear gray-haired mother became a novelist at the age of 73; her third book will be published this month.

But this memo isn’t about age. It’s about change. It’s about never losing the capacity to start a new chapter in your life…regardless of how the last chapter may have ended.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43:18-19)

God is ready to do something new in your life, to give you a fresh start. He has forgotten the former things; you can, too. The new creation will be springing up soon. Do you perceive it? Do you receive it?

Albert Einstein once said, “I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me my ideas.” He’s saying, basically, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

He may have understated his intelligence and talent, but he does so to make a point: For more than any other reason, he was successful because he was persistent.

I’m no Einstein, but I can also say that the success I have experienced can be attributed to this same principle. And I can say that my failures weren’t so much the result of a lack of talent or the lack of worthwhile goals; they were the result of quitting too soon.

Solomon said, “For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again.” (Proverbs 24:16)

When I’m struggling with failure — spiritually, financially, or relationally — I have to remind myself several times a day that the difference between my being a wise man and a fool … the difference between my righteous and unrighteous … is determined by my willingness to get back up and try again.

Have you fallen down? Has it happened more than once? If you’re like me, maybe you sometimes want to throw in the towel. But remember this: if a dream is worth one good try, it’s worth a thousand.

Take another look at the goals God has given you. Then get up, and try again.

______________________________

Here’s a bulletin insert of this memo

Seth Godin says, “Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just annoying. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.”

Not that it needs elaboration, but Seth is saying that persistence (and the success that persistence leads to) requires unwavering focus on the end result, not on the strategies we use for getting there.

Are you driven by goals or strategies?

When success is elusive, we’re sometimes tempted to dump the goal: “We just can’t reach young people; we just can’t build community in our congregation; we just can’t have an effective discipleship ministry.”

It’s usually not the goal that needs to be re-evaluated, it’s the methodology.

Once you’ve nailed down a goal, and you know that it’s worthwhile, don’t abandon it. Just change your approach when you need to. Goals, not strategies, require persistence.

“I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Jesus Christ, is calling us up to heaven.” (Philippians 3:14)

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)

I received a brochure a while back from a company specializing in “resilient furniture”: simple, sturdy, water resistant tables and chairs — not fancy in any way, but built to last. They’re not cheap either; a plain white folding chair is about $60. They’re not as pretty as the office chairs I buy at Sam’s for about the same price, but those chairs, as I am reminded every time I have to replace one, don’t have a long life-span.

There’s something to be said for basic, unadorned resiliency—the ability to get through, get over, and thrive after trauma, trials and tribulations. In this sense, sturdy beats stylish every time.

USA Weekend did a cover story a few years ago on the subject of resiliency, asking the question, “Why do some people bounce and others break?” The article noted how some people who experience trauma withdraw into a shell, while others facing the same crisis not only bounce back, but bounce back stronger than ever before. It talked about how resiliency is being studied in universities and taught in corporate seminars. Resiliency, the article said, could become the most important skill of the 21st century.

Why do some people break down while others bounce back? Unlike furniture, I don’t think it has to do with our design. A chair can only be as strong as it was made to be; it can’t decide to be more resilient or less resilient. We, on the other hand, have access to support beyond ourselves.

Our “design” — our emotional make-up resulting from parental and societal influences — can be overcome. A person who is naturally weak and easily discouraged doesn’t have to stay that way.

There’s a verse in Philippians that is so often quoted its meaning is sometimes overlooked. Paul is talking about being able to face hard times as well as good times, and he states confidently, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13)

Resilience often comes down to a decision: whose strength will I draw from — my own, or God’s? One of the wonderful truths of the gospel message is that if you will look to God for strength, he will give it to you.

I lift up my eyes to the hills — where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:1-2)

Warren Wiersbe said, “A realist is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been purified. A skeptic is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been burned.”

Do you know what the difference is? It’s not the fire, or the heat or the duration. It’s the attitude you bring into it. When you look back on life’s unpleasant events, you can choose to see what you learned from the ordeal, or you can choose to just see it as a bad experience.

In every trial, every problem, every difficult situation, God is seeking to teach us something new, he’s seeking to take us to a higher place. Maybe it’s a chance to exercise a bolder faith, maybe it’s a chance to identify bad behavior that we must abandon, maybe it’s an opportunity to practice perseverance.  The lesson is always there in difficult situations; we can choose to be purified and made holy, or we can just allow ourselves to become burned and bitter.

Daniel wrote, “Many will be purified, cleansed and refined by these trials. But the wicked will continue in their wickedness, and none of them will understand. Only those who are wise will know what it means.” (Daniel 12:10)

In 1912, marathon runner Shizo Kanakuri was chosen to represent Japan in the Summer Olympics at Stockholm.

He began the race with the rest of the runners, but along the way was overcome with heat. He stopped at a garden party for some refreshment, but he stayed a little too long — more than an hour. It was now, he thought, too late to get back in the race. He took a train to his hotel and caught a boat back home, too ashamed to tell anyone he was leaving.

For more than 50 years Shizo was listed as a missing person in Sweden, until a journalist finally found him; he had spent the last several decades living a quiet life in southern Japan.

In 1966 the Swedish Public Television network called him with an offer: Would you like to finish your run? The 85 year old Kanakuri accepted, and he traveled to Stockholm to finish the race he had started so many years before. This time he did cross the finish line; his final time was 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds.

Our reward is not for starting the race, it’s for finishing it. We already know that. As Paul said in his farewell, “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me…” (Acts 20:24)

Here’s the next thing I want you to remember: It’s never too late to get back in the race. You can start running again today. The finish line is still where it used to be.

I was reading recently about Cal Ripken’s record. You know which one I’m talking about: He played 2632 consecutive baseball games. This is a record that may stay in the books forever; he will certainly be remembered forever as a legend in the game.

Most sports records are set when a player gets on a hot streak — he has a good game or a good month or even a good season. Ripken’s record is the result of a ‘hot streak’ that lasted more than 16 years. Day after day he simply took the next step in the right direction, one game at a time.

Something many people don’t know about Ripken is that during his first year as a pro, while playing minor league ball in West Virginia, he made his mark in a different way: he committed a league-leading 33 errors at short-stop.

Not a good start. Since his dad was already well-known in the world of baseball, critics called him an over-rated kid, not cut out for life in the big leagues. But Cal Jr. kept taking one more step in the right direction, one game at a time. Later in his career he went 95 consecutive games without making an error, and committed only three in an entire season — another record he holds. Ripken’s habit of taking one more step took him on a journey from worst to first.

It’s a journey you can take, too. God wants to pour out his grace in your life. He wants to change you through and through. He wants to give you victory over sin, and the power to live the life of your dreams.

Today, if you feel like you’re the worst, he wants to help you move in the direction of becoming first.

Paul said, “For I am the least of the apostles. In fact, I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God’s church. But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on m — and not without results.” (1 Corinthians 15:9-10)

God is ready to pour out his grace — his special favor — in your life, too. Accept it, and take that next step in his direction.

Andre Previn said, “If I miss a day of practice, I know it. If I miss two days, my manager knows it. If I miss three days, my audience, knows it.”

He was talking about the piano, but the same is true about your devotional life. When you’re spending time with God on a consistent basis, it shows. When you aren’t, it also shows. You’ll see it first, then those closest to you, and, pretty soon, it’s obvious to everyone.

Paul said that you can be “transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12:2) This renewal — this transformation — occurs during those quiet moments we spend in the presence of God, when we open his Word and open our hearts to what the Spirit would say to us.

No matter what one accomplishes professionally in the work of the ministry, this time with God remains a daily priority. If Andre Previn needs to practice the piano every day to stay at his best, we need to practice the presence of God every day to stay at our best.

In 1941, Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda was sent to a small US-occupied island in the Philippines with orders to do all he could to hamper enemy attacks on the island. He linked up with a group of soldiers already stationed there, but within a month, all but four of the men had been killed in battle. Hiroo and the others took the hills.

In 1945 they began seeing pamphlets stating the war had ended, but Onoda dismissed them as propaganda. In the following few years, the others surrendered or died one by one, but Onoda held his position, even continued his guerilla activities … until 1974.

Onoda finally met a college dropout named Suzuki backpacking in the island who explained to him the war had ended. Still, the dedicated soldier was reluctant to believe. Finally, his former commanding officer — long since retired — flew to the island and gave Onoda his orders to lay down his arms.

There are two directions I can go with this illustration, both of which have relevant application.

The first is to realize that Hiroo Onoda’s story is one of honor. He was sent to do a job and he refused to leave his post until he received a specific order, even though it was 29 years before the order arrived. We would do well to stay in the battle ourselves — the battle that Ephesians 6:10 reminds us we’re in. We would do well to keep fighting until we hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful…come and share your master’s happiness.” (Matthew 25:21)

Another way to apply this story is to remember that so many of us — just like Lt. Onoda — are unnecessarily fighting a war that has long since been won. The wrong war. This is not the battle we’ve been called to, it’s the battle we’ve been saved from. And we’re not engaged in combat because of honor, but because of pride and disbelief.

Before Jesus breathed his final breath, he cried out “It is finished.” Maybe some within the sound of his voice thought he was talking about his own life, or maybe they thought he was talking about the future of his following … but the truth is that he was talking about the power of sin and death. Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:31) And at that moment death was swallowed in victory; the cost of our freedom was paid in full.

Like the pamphlets that arrived on that tiny Philippine island, we have heard about our liberation — but we refuse to believe it. It’s too good to be true. We stubbornly stay in the fight, and we lose battle after battle — the same battles he has already won.

It is finished, he said. Sin. Death. Guilt. Regret. Sin. Despair. Isolation. And did I mention sin? These are all swallowed up in the victory of the cross and his powerful resurrection.

His work is finished, he has rested. And he is inviting us now to rest in him.