An archery contest was in progress. One after another the contestants stepped up to the line, took careful aim, and let their arrows fly at the target. Arrow after arrow embedded its point in the target, some near its center, others farther away. Finally, a contestant stepped up to the mark, poised his arrow carefully, and with a look of confidence on his face, let it fly. Away it flew for the target, but alas, instead of striking in the center — it struck out near the edge of the target, farther from the center than any other arrow. He had missed. He had done the poorest of any of the contestants.
Some of the spectators smiled covertly. Others laughed aloud at his poor shot. Some looked at him in surprise, for they had expected a good shot from him. But he missed. He failed in his purpose and now he stood before them chagrined, humiliated, ridiculed. How natural, under the circumstances, to feel discouraged. How natural that he should say within himself, “Well, I shall never try again. I shall never allow myself to be humiliated publicly again. If I cannot do better than that, then I will stop practicing archery altogether.”
Would he be wise to do this? Should he not rather inquire why the arrow missed the mark? Why did he so fail in his purpose? Was he careless in his aim or in the manner of his shooting — or was there a flaw in his arrow? Perhaps the feathers on his arrow were not arranged properly, or possibly the bowstring slipped at one end. Perhaps a gust of wind caught the arrow and drove it out of its course. Was it his fault or was it a contingency against which he could not be prepared? Perhaps the miss was not his fault.
Life is like this contest. We can look back, doubtless, upon many shots that missed. Many of our endeavors have brought us only failure. We have felt the humiliation of failure. We have felt the heart-burning that has come with the ridicule from others, the scornful smile, the pitying look, or perhaps the contemptuous sneer.
Failure is discouraging. The shot missed the target. You did not attain the expected result.
Perhaps you tried to help someone. You said or did just what you thought would be the best, but you missed the mark. You failed and went away discouraged, and that discouragement stood in the way of your using your next opportunity or perhaps several opportunities to do something further. You realized you had done your best, but you had failed.
More than likely you have had a thousand such experiences in your life. You realize you have failed in many things. Sometimes you have not been able to carry out your intentions. Sometimes unexpected circumstances have arisen to dash your plans to the ground. Sometimes other people have consciously or unconsciously thrown hindrances in your way. Sometimes your own weaknesses, faults, carelessness, lack of forethought, unwise methods, or something else causes your goals and purposes to collapse at your feet.
There is always humiliation and discouragement in failure, whether that failure results from our own faults or from things beyond our control. We often fail because we do not know all the forces working or cannot foresee the contingencies that we must face. Sometimes we fail and do not know why we fail.
“What shall we do when we fail? Fold our arms and sit idle and discouraged? There is a better way. The old saying is, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.’ The Bible also encourages us to forget what is behind and press on toward what is ahead, as Philippians 3:13-14 reminds us, “… forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Unless we follow this wisdom in our lives, we will inevitably fail to be all we could be.”
Life is made of successes and failures. No one can hope always to succeed. Not all efforts will be fruitful. We know too well the weakness and inefficiency of humanity to believe that we can always win.
Sometimes we fail when we feel we ought not to have failed. This is the kind of failure that stings us most. No matter what sort of failure we make, or how great that failure — there is one thing we ought never to do, but it is very natural to do this very thing. It is so natural that we will find ourselves doing it before we realize it. That thing is to condemn ourselves. Perhaps we have been to blame for our failure. Heaping condemnation upon ourselves is not going to help matters even in such a case. Meet the things as they are, but do not become your own persecutor.
Instead of being discouraged by our failures, we should summon our resolution. We should determine that we will not be balked, that our lives shall not be failures — then we shall conquer our weaknesses and our faults.
Charles Wesley Naylor is considered one of the most prolific and inspiring songwriters of the Church of God. He was bedridden for much of his adult life but wrote eight books, a newspaper column and over 150 songs. Many of his writings are in the public domain.
