Three Options When You Fail

Some people can spend too much time on video games, but programmers build in save points so you can play them for short bursts. A save point is a place in a game where you can stop and continue later at the same spot. You don’t have to restart from the very beginning. That’s what makes video games so fun. You can face any danger, go as fast as you want, make as many daring jumps as you need to. Why? Because if you fail, it’s not the end.

Save points don’t exist in real life. You can’t go back and just relive the day, trying not to make the same mistakes again. And that reality gives you three options when you fail.

One: you can quit. You hit the wall and decide it’s not for you. Whether you quit that project, your job, that relationship, whatever—quitting is always an option. But quitting is a guarantee that you’ll never know the sweetness of success.

Two: you can start over. Just hit restart on that area of your life. Take on another job, start a new project, or go on a date with someone else. The problem is that those who just want to hit restart usually don’t learn from their mistakes. They avoid looking too deeply at their failures.

Three: you can get stronger. You can push into your failures and learn from them. You can double down at your job, make a fresh go at that same project, or reinvest in that relationship. It’s the hardest of the three choices. But it’s the only way you can use each failure as momentum to reach your true potential.

Which of those three options do you think God wants you to do? It may be tempting to say the second since he promises us a clean slate from our past. But I’m not talking about your salvation from sin. I’m talking about your recovery from failure. What does God want you to do? The God who says he will redeem what you lost (Joel 2:25). The God who asks you to make the most of every opportunity (Colossians 4:5). The God who says he will renew your strength when you fail (Isaiah 40:29–31).

I think he wants us to get up off the ground, dust ourselves off, and take another run at that wall. He wants us to be resilient, determined to make it work. He wants us to see failure not as an end but as a new beginning. Save points don’t exist in real life—not really. But God can use our failures to prepare us to fulfill the dreams he has placed on our heart.