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Failure

Have you ever failed, felt like giving up? Have you ever made some huge mistakes that you want to forget or maybe you can’t get over some major disappointments? Well if you have, then don’t lose heart, because you are not the only one! So have I and we are all in illustrious company…the failures of the famous are many! Henry Ford said after he had failed and gone broke five times before he succeeded:

“Failure provides the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.”

Abraham Lincoln failed as a businessman and as a lawyer, had a nervous breakdown and had multiple defeats in politics before he was elected as President.

Winston Churchill failed at school and at Military College, had several defeats in political life before becoming Prime Minister. His mantra was:

“Never, Never, Never, Never give up.”

Thomas Edison was told by his teachers that he was:

“too stupid to learn anything.”

He had 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb, but said he didn’t fail 1,000 times, but he just discovered 1000 things that didn’t work!

One of Albert Einstein’s teachers described him as:

“mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.”

He was also expelled from school .

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland!

Decca Records turned down a recording contract with the Beatles,

“We don’t like their sound!”

and Elvis Presley was told,

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”

Beethoven’s teacher called him “hopeless as a composer.”Yet he wrote five of his greatest symphonies while completely deaf and Van Gogh painted over 800 paintings yet sold only one.

Twelve publishers rejected J.K. Rowling’s book and twenty-seven publishers rejected Dr. Seuss’s first book,

We can learn valuable lessons from many of the great heroes of faith in the Bible. For example, Moses, King David and Joseph who had many major disappointments yet he was still able to say to his brothers who had plotted to kill him: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

The apostle Peter learned from his massive failure and of course, Jesus death and resurrection was the supreme example in all of history of triumph coming out what seemed to be the ultimate disappointment, defeat and failure.

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