Nothing Succeeds Like Failure

Sep 18

A common motto heard in the business world says, “Nothing fails like success.” In other words, once you peak, there is nowhere to go but down! When you finally reach the top, you are likely to stop doing those things that helped get you there. What I have learned recently is that, in the spiritual life, the opposite is true: “Nothing succeeds like failure!” (Try pitching that as your company’s motto at a board meeting…) It may not sound appealing at first, but when we look back we will almost certainly agree that our most transformative moments have occurred as a result of some failure.

It may not have been a disastrous failure; it may have been as simple as forgetting your lines during a talk or missing class because you overslept. Every instance of failure chips away at the image of ourselves we have built up and believed to be who we are. Our failures are doing us immense good by bringing us closer and closer to the knowledge of who we truly are and the humility needed to accept ourselves. Life is a process of discovering who we truly are, and life is a journey towards humility.

“Love our abjections”

— St. Francis de Sales

St. Francis de Sales used another phrase to encourage fellow believers who were discouraged by their own flaws and failures. St. Francis tells us to “love our abjections,” meaning, learn to love those qualities about ourselves that we are tempted to want to change, fix, or get rid of. While we do the best we can to work on our imperfections and break down obstacles that keep us from loving God and others, we eventually encounter the realization that our own efforts are fruitless apart from grace.

Transformation then changes from a self-improvement program to a deepening trust in God’s timing and the understanding that we are to wait upon God to deliver us. Sometimes the most virtuous thing to do in the meantime is learn to endure ourselves, even though we are not as far along the journey as we wish we were.

I can think of plenty of examples from my own life, but a simple one will suffice. After six years in the Oblates, I can confidently report that I am still not a very good cook, no matter how much practice I get. It has never been an intuitive skill for me, and it may never be. When I humbly accept this fact about myself, I lose nothing but the illusion of my own competence that I clung to so I could bolster up my own self-image. The goodness gained by accepting God’s love for me in the midst of failure, and believing that His love really is enough, far outweighs whatever good I might gain from being a better cook. Sooner or later, God has a wonderful way of letting us see ourselves for who we truly are and repeatedly—but gently—inviting us to let go of the idol of our own greatness that we so often rely on to survive.

St. Francis’s teaching on the love of abjection is another example of his insightful way of weaving spiritual growth into our daily lives. No day unfolds perfectly as we wish. Every day invites reflection on what we wish we could have done better, and each instance of failure is a privileged opportunity for grace to break through the illusion of our self-sufficiency.

Rather than leaving us discouraged, we can thank God for the chance to accept that we are limited creatures embraced by limitless love. This is a tremendous invitation to the freedom God desires for us. St. Paul writes: “Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” To this we can add: “Whether we succeed or fail, we are the Lord’s.” That is enough for us.