#MajorKey: Perseverance

I love reading quotes to get me through the busy week. I came across this one the other day by Oprah Winfrey she said;

“A Queen is not afraid to fail; failure is another stepping stone.”

In a world that focuses on successful people, if you fail you may think it’s the end of the world and begin to be hard on yourself.

But I can guarantee some of the most successful people on the earth failed before they got to where they are today. Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and Steven Jobs would have all failed at one point in their lives. However, they didn’t let their failure overwhelm them. They got up and tried again.

Imagine if Steve Jobs didn’t pick himself up after his first failure, our trustee iPhones might not even exist!

Imagine if Michael Jordan let all the shots he missed get him down. He wouldn’t be one of the world’s best basketball players and he probably wouldn’t have a trainer made in his name.

Imagine if Oprah Winfrey gave up as soon as things got a bit difficult for her. She probably wouldn’t have had the Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated television programme of it’s kind in history!

So how did these people become successful even after failure? Well, they persevered.

“Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

What examples of perseverance are there in the bible?

Moses was raised in the palace but after defending someone who was being mistreated and killing the offender in the process, he fled from all of his luxuries until one day God called him back to his home town to save the Israelites who were being held as slaves. At the time of the incident Moses may have felt that he had massively failed in his position as Prince, but Moses eventually became one of the bible’s greatest leaders and saw incredible miracles happen to enable him to lead the Israelites out of slavery. (You can read Moses’ story in Exodus).

Another person in the bible that persevered was Job. Job’s family and life was destroyed, even his wife told him “curse God and die!” (Job 2:9). I am sure Job felt like a failure. Everything he ever worked for was gone. But he trusted in God and because of his loyalty Job’s later life turned out to be way better than his earlier life…. isn’t that amazing!

Failure is part of life. Whether it’s not getting the grades you wanted in school or missing your bus even though you ran REALLY fast, it’s bound happen.

But your life doesn’t need to end when you fail. Remind yourself, everything works for those who love God and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28) So next time you fail see it as an opportunity to persevere… Who knows, you could the next Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, or Steve Jobs!