Life's Disappointments are not God's Denial

We all experience failures at some point in our lives. As Einstein said, "anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." And if we look at it from another perspective; as Edison did, "I've never failed, I've just discovered 10000 ways not to do something."

Einstein's quote is about our willingness to make a mistake, or fail at something, so as to discover a new way of doing things; while Edison's quote speaks about failure as an evaluated experience.

As leaders, we ourselves must learn to reflect on our behaviors each day, so slow down the thinking process and evaluate if and how we can make improvements in our daily activities so as to achieve our ultimate goal, and that is to fulfill our life's mission.

I'm not sure what's yours but its probably very different from mine.

Three points I would like to make on today's discussion about "life's disappointments are not God's denial".

First, as a believer I know that God has implanted in each of us a mission in life. That mission is to do great things. It may seem insignificant to another but the point is, if we go about it each day to work towards fulfilling that mission; we would have led a full life.

Hence, as leaders we must not see our roles as in nurturing talents but to believe that everyone already have the talents. Meaning, we must believe in the intrinsic worth of every individual.

John Buchan said it nicely that the task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.

Second, as leaders we must recognize that when people fail, we must work with them to evaluate their actions and identify why they failed. Was it due to conditions that were beyond their control or was it due to reasons within their influence.

Here, individuals who are proactive will look within to identify the reasons why they fail. Reactive ones will look outside for excuses for their failure.

As John Maxwell puts it, "it's easier to go from failure to success than from excuses to success". I find that to be so true.

Third and final point is this. We will all experience some form of disappointment in life. But to think that it is because of God's denial is definitely a faulty thought. Since our thoughts about things will affect our feelings about it; we cannot deny the fact that if we have empowering feelings the results will greatly differ if we habor disempowering feelings.

Hence, how can we get ourselves to feel happy regardless? I believe the secret lies within. And that means, if we are being "present" and focusing on what we are currently doing (and not be held hostage by the past nor worry about the future - where both are outside your span of influence) and do it to the best we can, given our ability, we will always be in that state of happiness.

And what could be better than be doing something, which you know it's God's plans for you, your life's mission? I'll leave you with a verse from the Bible.

Ecclesiastes 2:26 (NIV) - To the man who pleases Him, God gives him wisdom, knowledge, and happiness, but to the sinner He gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
Your friend,
Melvyn
(Sent from my Blackberry Bold)