It surprises some to know that a professional baseball player, if he bats 10 times, strikes out 7 times and only gets three hits…he is one of the best ever. Striking out 7 times or more is not the goal. But it is the reality. There are over 1,200 big league players hitting under .300. That means they make 8 or 9 outs for every 1 or 2 hits they get. Yet, they are in the major leagues. As of today, only 7 players hit 3 or more times for every 10 at bats. They are superstars. So, failing is not the same as failure.
Failure is not as much about messing up as it is giving up. We all fail and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) It may be truer than we think that people fail all the time. Hopefully, we can make a mistake and learn from it. The famous line “Well I won’t do that again!” We try, we fail and we grow. Part of the human process.
I like the way one person put it: “Failure IS an option here. If you are not failing, you are not trying very hard.” Another person said “Failure is not fatal but failing to keep trying might be.”
Try not to worry about the critics. Let me close with this quote from Theodore Roosevelt. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”
See you soon, good Lord willing,
Pastor Tom
