The Hope QuotientSample

The team that makes the most mistakes is usually the one that wins because their mistakes mean they’re trying something. 

John Wooden, the famous UCLA coach said, “If you’re not making mistakes then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.”

Johnny Cash, the famous singer who battled serious drug and alcohol abuse, said, “You build on failure. You use it as a stepping-stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on them. You don’t let them have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.”

Every hope-filled, thriving, successful person has two things in common: 

1.  They have a lot of past failures. 

2.  They never let those past failures stop them.

Paul had a violent past of persecuting the church and killing Christians. Paul called himself the “greatest sinner of all” and “the least worthy of all the apostles,” but he let it go and wrote most of the New Testament. Paul remembered his past, but he didn’t let it chain him to guilt. He let it go.

Do the same. Let it go.

If we refuse to let regret, bitterness, worry, failures, and the guilt that rains down on us bury us, then those things have within them the power to lift us to levels we’ve never before reached. If we refuse to let the hope-killers steal our future and bury us, then we set ourselves up for something great that God wants to do through us. 

Shake it off.

Think Up:

Have you experienced failures in your past? Welcome to the human experience.

What can you do to shake off the past and pursue your dreams? (Read on).