As we enter 2011, you may be looking back on a year when resolutions were not kept, promises were broken, opportunities were missed, and goals were not reached. Perhaps the best way to welcome a new year is by remembering that our God is the God of the second chance and more. In light of this, I have felt impressed to repost something I wrote four years ago. I hope you will join me in finding encouragement in the discovery of young John Mark; the discovery that failure is not final. - WB
FAILURE IS NOT FINAL
By Wayne Bristow
Copyright © 2006 Wayne Bristow
To me, one of the evidences that the Bible is the inspired Word of God is that it is not just a book of glory stories. Over and over, it tells us about people who failed and went on to learn that failure need not be final. They discovered that ours is the God of the second chance and more.
These days, I’m a great fan of any achiever who is over 65 years of age. That’s why I had a special interest in this year’s Orange Bowl football game. It had been hyped as “one for the ages,” pitting coaching legends Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden against each other. Joe Pa led his Penn State Nittany Lions onto the field at the spry age of 79. Bowden, the coach of the Florida State Seminoles was only 76.
For a while, it looked as though the length of the game was going to equal their ages. Finally, in the third overtime, at 1:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, Kevin Kelly booted a 29-yard field goal, securing a 26-23 win for Penn State.
When the football sailed through the uprights, you could almost see the monkey leaping off of Kelly’s back. He had previously missed kicks of 29 and 38 yards that would have won the game.
Paterno’s reaction to his place kicker’s failures sealed his place in my personal hall of fame. After the second miss, the aging coach put his arm around Kelly’s shoulder and said, “I’m too old for this. It’s past my bedtime.”
Then, on a second down, he calmly patted the freshman’s back and sent him back onto the field for another try.
It’s my guess that Joe Pa’s willingness to give him another chance will have a positive impact on Kelly’s life long after he has played his last football game.
Have you ever needed another chance?
* Have you already broken a New Year’s resolution?
* Have you ever really messed up?
* Have you blown an opportunity?
* Have you started something that you failed to finish?
* Have you ever broken a promise?
* Are you struggling with a major failure that you think is unforgivable?
If your answers were “no” to all of the above, you might want to stop here and find something more profitable to do.
If you said “yes” to at least one of those questions, stick around. I’m talking to you.
Chuck Martin, a syndicated columnist and best-selling business book author, recently surveyed senior executives and managers concerning failure. About 70 per cent of those responding said they could recall a time when they wish they had been given a second chance.
Martin concluded that someone who has failed the first time around, and gets a chance to do it over, just might be the person who becomes charged enough to take his or her part of the business to a new level.
Bill Gates says, “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
General George S. Patton said, “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.”
Charles “Tremendous” Jones says, “Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.”
Zig Ziglar reminds us that “Failure is an event, never a person; an attitude, not an outcome.”
Someone has said, “Success doesn’t mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle.”
You might say, “Yes, but you have to know when enough is enough and it’s time to throw in the towel.”
Before you go too far with that, think about this:
* He failed in business in 1831.
* He was defeated for the legislature in 1832.
* He failed in business again in 1834.
* His sweetheart died in 1835.
* He had a nervous breakdown in 1836.
* He was defeated in an election in 1838.
* He was defeated for Congress in 1843.
* He was defeated for Congress again in 1846.
* He was defeated for Congress again in 1848.
* He was defeated for the Senate in 1855.
* He was defeated for Vice President in 1856.
* He was defeated for the Senate in 1858.
* In 1860, he was elected President of the United States of America. Of course, his name was Abraham Lincoln.
To me, one of the evidences that the Bible is the inspired Word of God is that it is not just a book of glory stories. Over and over, it tells us about people who failed and went on to learn that failure need not be final. They discovered that ours is the God of the second chance and more.
This was true of young John Mark. He seemed destined for spectacular success. He was from a privileged home in Jerusalem, probably with a Levite heritage. His mother, Mary, was a godly woman. He was often in the company of men who would go on to write great chapters in Christian history. He probably was among those who saw the resurrected Christ. He saw the results of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. He saw the power of prayer when Peter was delivered from prison and showed up at the gate of his mother’s home. He was in the right place at the right time to go with his cousin, Barnabas, and Paul on their first missionary journey. He looked like a shoo-in for the “rookie of the year” award.
Then, he hit the wall; the wheels came off and everything went south!
When the missionary team determined to go into the interior of Asia Minor, when Paul’s evangelism was about to be focused on the Gentiles, Mark left and went home to Jerusalem.
“Now Paul and his companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia; but John left them and returned to Jerusalem,” Acts 13:13, NASB.
We don’t know why this happened. Mark may have been homesick. Maybe the rigors of travel, the strange food and culture shock finally got to him. Perhaps, as a devout Jew, he was not ready to accept Paul’s determination to reach out to the Gentiles. Whatever the reason might have been, he dropped out. He quit and went home to Mother.
We don’t know all that happened when Mark returned to Jerusalem, but it is believed that he came under the influence of the Apostle Peter, a man who knew a lot about something that Paul did not know - failure.
It makes sense that there would have been a strong connection between the young missionary dropout and the impetuous disciple who had denied his Lord.
When her dejected son came home, Mary may have invited Peter for dinner. During the meal, Mark might have talked about the problem he was having with Paul’s determination to make the Gentiles the focus of his ministry. I can hear Peter saying, “I’ve had to cross that bridge. Let’s take a walk, and I’ll tell you how it happened.”
Perhaps, walking in moonlight on the slope of the Mount of Olives, Peter talked about the vision he saw at the house of Simon the tanner in Joppa. He would have told Mark about having to learn that what God has cleansed we are not to consider unholy. Then, he would have related the glorious work of the Holy Spirit in the home of the Roman centurion, Cornelius.
Peter might have put his arm around Mark’s shoulder and said, “Son, they call me ‘Rocky,’ and the hardest thing about me is my head. It hasn’t an easy lesson for me to learn, but this good news about Jesus is for everybody everywhere. Paul’s tough. He’s demanding. He’s not always the easiest guy to get along with. Take it from me; if you get out of line about this Gentile thing, he’s going to get in your face. But he’s right.”
That’s when Mark might have confessed that, in his heart, he knew that all of this was true. Then, he might have said, “It looks like I’m just a quitter. I’m always running away. That night in the garden, when they came to arrest Jesus, you know that it was me who ran home naked. I was scared to death. I spent the whole night hiding. I can’t think about it without shame…Now, this! I’ve run home to Mother again.”
Shaking his head, Peter would have said, “Hey, look at me. Who do you think you’re telling this to? I’ve been there and done that big time!”
All the rest of that night, Mark would have listened while Peter talked about his own denial of Jesus, the restoration breakfast on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the awesome work of God on the Day of Pentecost and the real meaning of our Lord’s commission to go into the entire world.
As the sun was rising over the Mountains of Moab, Mark might have knelt, with Peter’s hand on his back, to confess failure and submit himself afresh to the Lordship of Christ.
During the days ahead, there must have been many hours spent in sharing between the young man and his mentor. Peter didn’t pull any punches. He didn’t just tell the glory stories. As he reminisced about all that happened during those three years with Jesus, he would have talked about how he and the other disciples just didn’t get it. He would have allowed his own failures to be seen by this young man who had been crushed by failure. He would have admitted how his mouth constantly ran ahead of his understanding; how he made promises when he didn’t even know what he was talking about. He would have talked about the Master’s impatience with religious legalists and his compassion for the multitudes. He would have remembered the miracles, and the amazing things that happened when they dared to appropriate the authority and power they were given as sent ones. In conclusion, he probably confessed how it seemed that all was lost on that awful Friday, when they realized that Jesus was really dead. Then, Sunday came and things had never been the same.
Peter might have taken Mark by both shoulders, looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Listen, if you don’t hear anything else that I’m telling you, get this; failure is not final!
As Peter poured himself into John Mark, the young man’s heart must have burned with a new awareness of the living Christ and with a sense of mission. He probably started writing it all down in a journal. Purpose replaced failure. He felt inspiration welling up inside him. He felt compelled to be a good steward of what he was hearing and learning. He felt that he had to tell this story!
Then, a day arrived that Mark had dreaded. Paul and Barnabas returned to Jerusalem. Maybe Mary invited the missionaries to dinner and her son asked himself, “How can I face them? What are they going to say to me? What can I say to them?”
That meeting must have been awkward. As these evangelists to the Gentiles talked about the response they had seen and God’s sustaining power in the face of persecution, Mark would have been thinking, “I missed getting in on that…I could have been there…I could have seen and experienced that.”
His encounter with Paul was probably akin to that of the tough coach of a winning team running across a player who had quit just before the season’s biggest game. Neither of them had much to say.
After Paul had excused himself and it was just family, Mary might have said, “Son, why don’t you tell your cousin Barnabas what has been happening since you came home?”
As Barnabas listened and as he observed Mark’s growth over the next few days, he became convinced that vital lessons had been learned, that his cousin was ready to try again.
Later however, in Antioch, when Barnabas suggested to Paul that they take Mark with them to visit the churches they had planted - that they give him a second chance and let him see what he had missed - he got a firm, “No way!”
Barnabas’s name meant “Son of Encouragement.” He had the tendency to look at someone and ask, “What can God do for and through this person.”
Paul was a totally sold-out, no nonsense man, obsessed with an urgent mission. He looked at someone and asked, “What can this person do for God?”
In The Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrases Acts 15:37-41: “Barnabas wanted to take John along, the John nicknamed Mark. But Paul wouldn’t have him; he wasn’t about to take along a quitter who, as soon as the going got tough, had jumped ship on them in Pamphylia. Tempers flared, and they ended up going their separate ways: Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus; Paul chose Silas and, offered up by their friends to the grace of the Master, went to Syria and Cilicia to build up muscle and sinew in those congregations.”
Now, instead of one missionary team, there were two. It wasn’t that Barnabas was right and Paul was wrong. However, one was quick to offer a second chance and the other was saying, “Not until I’m sure. Too much is at stake. Show me.”
Barnabas’s attitude, welcoming him back into the loop, was the encouragement the young man needed to recommit himself to his calling in Christ. Paul’s attitude, and the example of that apostle’s sharp singular discipline and focus, challenged Mark to discover a new level of determination.
Every day, he must have remembered the lesson he had learned from Peter: “Failure is not final!”
Over the next few years, Mark’s journal grew and grew - and he grew. One of the best days of his life must have been when Paul once again invited him to join his team. Ten years after that sharp disagreement between the Apostle and Barnabas, we find the young missionary dropout with Paul during his house arrest in Rome. When a letter was written to Philemon, Mark’s name is included with that of Luke and others who were standing by the evangelist to the Gentiles (Philemon 24).
Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae contains a strong word of commendation about Mark: “Barnabas’s cousin Mark (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him),” Colossians 4:10b.
A strong bond was formed between Mark and Paul to the extent that, when the Apostle was imprisoned in Rome a second time, he wrote to Timothy saying, “Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service,” 2 Timothy 4:11.
Mark’s bond with Peter remained strong. Obviously, they were together when that Apostle wrote 1 Peter, his letter to believers scattered throughout the Roman Empire. He refers to “my son, Mark.”
It is likely that Mark lived to see the two men who had the greatest influence on him lay down their lives for Christ. Perhaps he remained in Rome after Paul had been executed. He saw Nero turning up the heat on Christians. With all of this swirling about him, he was inspired to write the “gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” the story he had heard over and over from Peter. Ironically, the young Levite wrote to a Roman, Gentile audience what Peter, the apostle to the Jews, had seen and heard. If he had difficulty at one time understanding that this message was for everyone everywhere, he had learned his lessons well.
Applying what God taught Mark to our own lives, what should we remember?
* Don’t give up on yourself because God hasn’t given up on you.
* Be humble and honest enough to let other people learn from your failures. You might end up being a Peter to another John Mark.
* Take a chance and be a “Son of Encouragement” to someone who is ready for a second chance.
* Don’t be harder on other people than God is on you. When someone proves himself, welcome him back to the team.
* Keep your focus on Jesus. Without Him, you can do nothing.
* Remember an important lesson that Mark surely learned from Paul: “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” Philippians 3:12-14, NASB.
Mark learned what we must learn - failure is not final.
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