Failure and Success – Sunday, January 12, 2020

Many decades ago, author and clergyman Henry van Dyke wrote a classic tale about a wise man named Artaban from the mountains of Persia. He said of Artaban, “All through his life he was trying to do the best that he could. It was not perfect. But there are some kinds of failure that are better than success.”1

It’s a comforting thought because all of us have failures. Life is full of them. Our efforts often fall short of perfection, so we naturally hope that some good can come from the not-so-good moments in our lives. But is it really possible that some of our failures can actually be better than success?

Think about your own life. Have you ever failed to arrive on time because you stopped to listen to a loved one who needed you? Maybe you failed to check everything off your to-do list one day because you noticed someone else was struggling, and you offered to help. Or maybe your “failure” led you to a better approach, a path to success that otherwise would have remained hidden. Valuing failure is about understanding what truly matters.

One woman came to appreciate her so-called “failures” because she learned so much from them. She learned to listen and to appreciate others; she learned in a deeper way about courage, perseverance, and patience. She learned empathy and compassion. And perhaps most important, she learned that even when she failed, she was not a failure. Failure is an event, not a person, and without her “failures,” she would not be the person she is today.

A constant stream of so-called “successes” may have made her a different person. It may be that her compassion could have been replaced with intolerance, her humility with arrogance, her inner strength with a fragile sense of self-worth. She has come to understand that those failures have shaped her life for the better.

The only people who never fail are the people who never try. But if we can learn to see failure differently, then even as we do our best to succeed, we won’t fear our failures, because they can be our greatest teachers and opportunities for success.

1 The Story of the Other Wise Man (1923), xiii.
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January 12, 2020
Broadcast Number 4,713

The Tabernacle Choir
Orchestra at Temple Square

Conductors
Mack Wilberg
Ryan Murphy

Organist
Richard Elliott

Host
Lloyd Newell

Let All the World in Every Corner Sing
Ryan Murphy

The King of Love My Shepherd Is
Ryan Murphy

Sinfonia to Cantata XXIX
Johann Sebastian Bach; arr. Robert Hebble

All Things Bright and Beautiful
English melody; arr. Mack Wilberg

What a Wonderful World
George David Weiss and Bob Thiele; arr. Mack Wilberg

How Firm a Foundation
Attributed to J. Ellis; arr. Mack Wilberg