St. Boni Sermon 5.6.12

Failure. That was the basis of today’s sermon in church. Our pastor used examples such as Einstein, Michael Jordan, Thomas Edison, and let me just say, those examples are compelling. For instance Einstein, as most people know, failed out of school. Michael Jordan has some sick statistics about how many game shots he’s missed, how many games he's lost, and he was cut from his sophomore basketball team. Edison, while trying to create the battery, watched as ten years of hard work went up in flames only to exclaim "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start again." How profound. Some people are consumed by failure. They are swallowed whole by fear of working so hard at something and falling short. Of course, this wasn't a message on how to succeed in college or work, it was a message in failing in our faith. Faith is the hardened belief that something is truly there even when we cannot see it [my own, very simplified, definition of course!]. I suppose he meant not only our faith but also in how we serve God. The way we conduct ourselves, pity ourselves, use our body’s and our speech. We fail God all the time; we fail ourselves all the time. What we discussed was how this failure is not forever, the sermon was called "failing forward," and the message was simple: going forward we can take those failures and turn them not into fear but into lessons. There was a bible verse, Romans 5:3-4, "³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope." Our notes also held a section about what it means to be a "mature Christian" and the statement read [basically] that a mature Christian understands that failure is not final but that thru God’s grace and forgiveness we can always do right by him. Those, again, are my own words as I do not have the notes. In life, and in our faith we must persevere - because where would we be had Einstein or Edison gave into their failures. Anyway, I am always happy to attend the church I go to with my wonderful Grandma. The lessons learned always get through to me. With the funniest, more humble pastors I have ever witness, I must say - I love it. I will attempt to give my insights on all the sermons I attend on my road trip - because it's important to see how other churches get the message across!!