Ctrl-A. Delete. And just like that, you start over with a new page and an opportunity to get it right. Wouldn’t it be great if life were that simple?
Today is National Start Over Day. It’s a day to encourage us to get back up and try again when we fail. American educator Thomas H. Palmer is credited with the familiar proverb, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” It was written in the Teacher’s Manual published in 1840 and was to be a maxim to “encourage American schoolchildren to do their homework.” Palmer wrote, “Tis a lesson you should heed, try, try again. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”1
Failures mark the human experience. Nobody escapes failure. The question is, what will we do with failure? Consider some examples.
Thomas Edison is said to have failed 10,000 times when trying to make the light bulb.
Elvis Presley failed music classes in school and was a social outcast. “After his first paying gig, his manager told him, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”
Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) had many of his manuscripts rejected.
Abraham Lincoln lost a race for a Senate seat.
George Lucas’s Star Wars was rejected by Disney, United Artists, and Universal. FOX backed the movie but there was still great tension when making it. It wasn’t until after it appeared in theaters that Lucas’s genius was realized.
Col. Harland Sanders was turned down by 1,009 restaurants who were not interested in his fried chicken recipe. At 65 years old, Sanders was bankrupt and begging for someone to at least try it. Finally a restaurant did and it became Kentucky Fried Chicken.
And, during his screen test for RKO, an executive’s critique was especially harsh. “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Balding. Can dance a little.” Would you believe that this was said of Fred Astair?2
What if these “failures” hadn’t started over? What if they had just quit? It certainly would have been the easier thing to have done rather than risk further failure and humiliation.
Have you ever felt that way in your Christian life? Have you ever believed that your failure was so fatal that restoration was impossible? Consider the words of 1 John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Confess means to say the same thing about sin as God does; to acknowledge His perspective about sin.
Psalms 32:5 says, “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.” And we are reminded in Proverbs 28:13, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”
But, if we confess that sin, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The Lord lets us start over. We get a fresh start with forgiveness.
Sure, failures are discouraging. They are demoralizing. But God wants to give us new beginnings. To get that fresh start, let’s sincerely and from our heart pray David’s prayer in Psalms 51:1-4. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. (2) Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. (3) For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. (4) Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.”
1https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/5/messages/266.html
2https://www.developgoodhabits.com/successful-people-failed/
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