The Bible warns us: In the world you will have tribulation. (John 16:33) Yet God also comforts us with the encouraging statement, "Do not be afraid." This statement is found many times in the New Testament. No matter how committed you might be to your marriage, your job, your finances, your health, or to any other aspect of your life, you may fail. It may seem that the only way to prevent failure is to do nothing-don't marry, don't work, don't try. But there lies an even greater failure. You can safely anchor your ship in a harbor for a time, but ships aren't built to stay in port. Equally, you are not built to idle in a state of psychological inertia. Eventually, you must head to your destination, fully recognizing the risks involved.
When you fail at something, instead of despairing, welcome it as an opportunity to reinforce your faith. To get on the path to transformation you must get up on your feet after a fall, dust yourself off, and regain the power of the spirit. Do not let a failure contaminate your life with timidity and pessimism. Timidity and pessimism are spiritual prisons; don't let them paralyze you. The Bible says, God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power. (2 Tim. 1:7)
If you patiently carry on with optimism and forge your future (again and again), even if you fail at a specific task, you'll succeed at your larger mission: building spiritual character that transforms failures into successes. The Bible says, Troubles produce patience. And patience produces character. (Rom. 5:3-4)
"All sunshine makes a desert," goes a saying, and achieving success in life won't help you become deeply grounded. This can be illustrated by a bit of gardening knowledge. For example, bushes watered through irrigation have shallow roots that rest near the soil surface. These plants will die if the watering source they have become dependent upon malfunctions. Likewise, a steady stream of external rewards makes you vulnerable. Therefore, welcome (and smile at) occasional droughts. If you can tolerate temporary deprivations, they'll induce you to send your roots down deep and wide.
Often, failure darkens your mood, not because of the failure itself, but because of your reaction to it. Loss of a job, a demotion, a rejection by a lover, an illness or even getting old, all press the buttons of our insecurities. Being unwanted, unappreciated, and especially, unloved, is hurtful. But there are worse indignities in life: After a car accident left her quadriplegic, a twenty-eight-year-old actress decried the horror at having her once-beautiful body being cleaned by a rotating roster of caregivers. She sank slowly into the darkness of depression and rage. She prayed to die as quickly as possible. She begged the hospital staff to put her out of her misery. But one day her tirade against her body stopped. I walked into her room and found her smiling for the first time since the accident. She said, "my body is our body; caregivers' hands are my hands." I knew that the light had broken through her darkness. The Bible says, The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. (John 1:5)
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T. Byram Karasu, M.D. is the author of The Spirit of Happiness
