Mary Pickford, a famous actress back in the days of silent pictures, once said, “If you have made mistakes…there is always another chance for you…you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
She may or may not have been familiar with the inspired words of Solomon, but she certainly expressed the truth of what that wise man once said: “For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity.”
Failure is not determined by falling down, but by staying down. Dan Quayle, former vice president of the United States, said, “The question in life is not whether you get knocked down. You will. The question is, are you ready to get back up and fight for what you believe in?”
When we first started out trying to sell insurance by making cold calls, we soon learned that out of ten calls we would be rejected nine times. Others failed because they gave up after the seventh or eighth consecutive turn down.
On our walk to the kingdom, we can be sure that we will fall. We will be rejected; we will be knocked down over and over again. King Solomon’s exhortation to us is to keep getting back up again. People such as Mary Pickford and Dan Quayle agree with him.
Why do we allow the setbacks we encounter to get us down? We learn from everyday life as well as the inspired scriptures that success only comes through perseverance, by keeping on keeping on and getting up each time we are knocked down. As Mary Pickford said, “Failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
Winston Churchill is well known for many wise sayings, but his opinion on this subject is one of his best-known quotes. He said, “Never give in! Never, never, never, never give in. Never — in anything great or small, large or petty — never give up.”
Let us have the good sense, the godly sense, to persevere to the end. The Lord Jesus told us in one of his parables to “Occupy till I come.” In the parable, the faithful servants did not give up. They increased that which the Lord had entrusted to their care while awaiting his return. As a result, the Lord upon his return said unto them, “Well done, thou good and faithful servants: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
At times we all face opposition and defeat when we can be knocked down but not out. Let us keep getting up again by following the example of the faithful who have gone before. Paul encourages us as he shares with us how he overcame the troubles that faced him. He said, “We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed, we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, therefore we do not lose heart Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal “
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One