Imagine writing a resume of your failures and rejections.
Preposterous, right? The whole point of a resume is to impress others, to highlight successes, to let folks know about those all-star accomplishments. Why in the world would anyone create a summary of failures?
Scientist Melanie Stefan challenged colleagues to do precisely that, to log articles not published, fellowship applications rejected, research grants denied.
It turns out that the story of failures is much longer than the successes. Even among the best, most talented academics, for every article published or grant accepted, there were as many as six rejections. Imagine the hours spent dreaming, writing, and polishing–only to receive a Thanks, But No Thanks.
I laugh at this because yesterday I began a wonderful training ride. About ten miles along a familiar trail things were going great until I cranked down an incline around a blind left-hand corner and a barricade appeared. I had about ten feet to choose: veer left into the river, go straight and risk damaging an expensive front wheel, or turn hard right and hope for grass rather than pavement before I tipped over.
I didn’t quite make it to the grass. The bike’s fine. The runner behind me helped get three wheels back on the ground, and road rash heals.
We’re all training for something. Our team is training for a 500-mile bike ride. Jon Swanson’s training for a marathon. Some folks are training for graduation, or to be better bible-readers, great parents, or amazing employees. Many of us are training to follow Jesus better.
It’s tempting to polish the resume and omit the crashes. It’s tempting to impress by only posting the great rides, the successful projects, the best times.
But what does that do to the learners, the newbies, those who are just figuring it out? What happens when they get that first rejection, experience their first crash, and they’ve been misled into believing stumbles aren’t normal?
Ever start to pray, with the best of intentions, and then find your mind wandering? I do that–a lot, and I think others do as well. Imagine a new believer, given the impression that no real Christian would lose focus while praying. Imagine the heartache, the faith struggle, if Christian leaders aren’t honest about their own prayer “crashes.”
I don’t share my crash stories because I want you to feel sorry for me or because I want you to think I’m an idiot. I share them because we all crash, because vulnerability and transparency matter, because most of our lives aren’t as awesome as they appear on Facebook.
We all need to be reminded that crashes happen. We slip occasionally, or frequently. Rejections are probably more common than we realize. Our lives might be defined more by how we deal with failure than with success.
Jesus didn’t come to hang out with those who already had it figured out. He spent most of His time with folks who crashed a lot.
He still does.