Off to a good start …

It just ain’t so!

From calendars, to coffee cups, to Twitter tweets, there are a vast number of platitudes thrown our way every day that simply are not true.

Here’s one: “You must fail in order to succeed.”

Show me the biblical substantiation for that one!

If that were the case, parents need not discipline or teach their children. They would be better off to let their children wander into failure so they could become successful!

If that were the case, no need for pastors to teach their flocks the right way to live. Instead, better to let them go their own ways into failure so they will then succeed!

If that were so, there would be a great deal more “success” in this world!

Adam and Eve would have had things much better had they never eaten the forbidden fruit … and so would the rest of us.

The best way to live is to listen and learn first, then apply the correct thoughts, actions or behaviors the first time out and simply avoid failure all together.

In fact, one reason for scripture is to provide us with warnings and direction from the past so that we can avoid the same mistakes and make the right decisions the first time out. Look closely at 1 Corinthians 10:1-11:

“I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. All of them ate the same spiritual food, and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, ‘The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.’ And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day. Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.”

Too often our classic approach to life is like the guy who buys something that requires assembly. Instead of reading the directions first so that the item can be properly assembled on the first attempt, we tend to try assembling the item from our own reasoning … often failing and eventually resorting to consulting the written directions.

God doesn’t want us just trying life by our own reasoning first. Instead, He has supplied us with written instructions and examples to instruct, educate, and equip us first so that we can be successful in our adventures in life on our first attempt.

That does not mean we won’t fail sometimes. Nor does it mean we can’t get to success out of failure. But it does mean there’s a better, less painful, and more successful way of living … by avoiding failure in the first place.

Scotty