PUSH: Persevere Until Success Happens Through Prayer (18 page)

Respect begets respect. It is the key to nurturing an honest, durable relationship. But you must first respect yourself. Eighteenth-century novelist and clergyman Laurence Sterne once said, “Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.” Regardless of your shortcomings or the shortcomings of others, respect is a virtue that will give any relationship sustainability. Demonstrate respect for other people’s rights, opinions, personhood, possessions, and boundaries, and expect them to do the same for you.

Having a serving heart requires you to put the needs of others above your own:
“in honor giving preference to one another”
(Romans 12:10). Servanthood is the precursor to achieving a rich and rewarding relationship.

Interaction and exchange of ideas is very important in keeping a healthy and genuine relationship. It is how we let others know our feelings, thoughts, and views and how we express compassion for one another. When we communicate with someone, we are connecting with him or her on an emotional level. We allow ourselves to feel what they feel, to understand their thoughts, and see what they want us to see. Our ability to share and connect with others in a deep and meaningful way is one of life’s greatest joys and one of God’s most precious gifts.

Commitment is a prerequisite to any relationship. It is our loyalty, devotion, and dedication to someone dear to us. Commitment says, “I know you have weaknesses, and sometimes you will disappoint me and I will disappoint you, but I am in this relationship because I love you, all of you, weaknesses and all. Through thick and thin, sun and rain, hardship and pain, I am here for you.”

I call these the twin virtues. We must be patient with those we are in relationship with. Remember that sometimes challenging relational circumstances are intentionally delegated to us as a divine gift so that we have the opportunity to grow. It is what makes us and our relationships stronger. When we recognize our flaws, this helps us to become more understanding, patient, and forgiving with one another.

Forgiveness is a heartfelt decision to let go of the past and forget about the pain you’ve been caused. Learn how to forgive yourself for the dumb things you do and how to forgive others for the dumb things they do too. We are all susceptible to bouts of bad judgment.

This is what I call the “stick-to-it” component of relationships. Many relationships falter because they lack loyalty. Marriages fail because of unfaithfulness. Husbands and wives forget what they’ve pledged to each other at the altar. Business partnerships and friendships are ruined because of treachery and betrayal. We switch friends and change boyfriends and girlfriends like we’re changing shirts. However, there are times when we just have to stick around, commit ourselves to being loyal, and allow our relationships to move forward. A “stick-to-it” attitude when it comes to relationships will position us to withstand the challenges of life.

Treat every person you meet as if he or she were a friend, whether or not they have earned it. You never know how that person might be a blessing to you someday. As the writer of Hebrews put it,
“Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels”
(Hebrews 13:2). Being kind is an easy way to guarantee you don’t sabotage your own success.

Humor is a very good healing tool in a relationship, and laughter is good for the soul. When things are tense, a good laugh always proves a potent relaxant. It adds zest to serious business deals, brings fun and enjoyment to relationships, and strengthens the bonds of teamwork within corporate environments. When someone cracks a funny joke in a room, everybody who hears it can’t help but laugh or smile. Funny memories make our lives unforgettably sweet.

The laughs I’ve shared with friends in high school and college have often come to mind, and every time they do I can’t help but smile at the memory. Laughter is the most cost effective do-it-yourself face-lift a person can have. And it’s incredibly contagious. Wear a smile whenever possible because it
always
makes you look better and makes everyone around you feel better.

Fostering good relationships is not automatic. You must work at it daily. These are the things that a good relational parachute is made out of. I ask you once again, “Who is packing your parachute?” Choose and then build your relationships carefully.

He who is of a merry heart has a continual feast.
—P
ROVERBS
15:15

R
ejection is one of those life experiences from which we usually don’t see how we can benefit. However, as I studied the lives of successful people, I discovered that most of them had something in common—many of them had experienced rejection. We don’t have to look far in the Bible to see the same is true of the great patriarchs of the faith. Joseph, for example, was hated and rejected by his siblings, falsely accused for a crime he never committed, and imprisoned. Yet he went on to become prime minister of Egypt. Moses was an ex-convict with a speech impediment. In spite of his handicap, his past, and being rejected by his own people, he eventually became a world-class leader and reformer.

What about modern heroes of the faith? Oral Roberts suffered from the socially crippling effects of stuttering as a child. Abraham Lincoln was told he was too poor and did not have enough education to run for president. Look at our cultural heroes such as George Lucas, who spent four years shipping the script for
Star Wars
around to the various studios and racking up numerous rejections in the process. Walt Disney was turned down for a loan by over a hundred banks before he secured funding to develop Disneyland. He was also fired from his job at a newspaper for “lacking ideas.”

Lou Ferrigno, best known for his role on the TV show
The Incredible Hulk,
suffered rejection from his father because of chronic ear infections that resulted in hearing loss. His father believed that he would never achieve success, yet Lou went on at the age of twenty to become the youngest bodybuilder ever to win the Mr. Universe title. “If I hadn’t lost my hearing,” Lou said, “I wouldn’t be where I am now. It forced me to maximize my potential. I had to be better than the average person to succeed.”
⁷²
Even Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Michael said, “I’ve failed over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.” Beethoven’s music teacher told him he was a hopeless composer. At four years of age, and partially deaf in one ear, Thomas Edison was sent home from school with a note saying he was too stupid to learn. With only three months of formal education, Edison went on to become one of the world’s greatest inventors.

Rejection is a divine announcement that you were never supposed to prosper within a particular relationship or realm. Did you see the movie blockbuster
The Pursuit of Happyness,
starring Will Smith? The movie is based on the true rags-to-riches story of Chris Gardner. You know you’ve made it when Will Smith is portraying you in a biographical movie.

In and out of foster care as a child, this entrepreneur, whose net worth was estimated at $65 million in 2006, lost his wife and was homeless on the streets of San Francisco with a young son in the early 1980s. Determined to make it as a stockbroker, he took a position as a trainee at Dean Witter Reynolds. With little money, Gardner and his son slept in parks and public restrooms after Gardner worked as many hours as he could, pro bono, to become the top banker at his firm. It all paid off in 1987 when Gardner started his own brokerage firm in Chicago.

Look at your life from a different perspective. Perhaps your past rejections are the divine push you need to move on to bigger and better things.

Your words stand fast and true; rejection doesn’t faze You.
—R
OMANS
3:4 MSG

But the rejection will force honesty, as God reveals who they really are.
—L
UKE
2:35 MSG

A failure is not always a mistake; it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
—B. F. S
KINNER

O
ne of man’s greatest fears is the fear of failure. However, learning from failure is part of the process of being successful. History’s most successful figures could not have accomplished what they did had they not embraced the lessons failure offered them or had they heeded the deceptive voices of the fear of failure. Fear can be defined as “False Evidence Appearing Real.” Fear is only a matter of perception, as is the concept of failure. What some see as failure and an obstacle, others see as a learning opportunity and stepping stone.

Failure is really success turned inside out. It is God’s gentle way of saying, “Don’t give up; try another way.” You don’t fail because your efforts are unsuccessful; you fail only when you give up or give in. The famous dramatist Tennessee Williams said, “I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.” Thomas Edison said, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Remember, you have not lived if you never failed.” And Lou Holtz said, “I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.”

It was Winston Churchill who, having failed the sixth grade, was later defeated in every election for public office until he became prime minister at the age of sixty-two. He later wrote, “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, never, never, never give up.” Churchill must have taken his cues from another one of history’s most admired political figures, Abraham Lincoln.

As a young man, Lincoln went to war a captain and returned a private. He later failed at business. As a lawyer in Springfield, he was too impractical and temperamental to keep his law practice afloat. He turned to politics and was defeated in his first try for the legislature, again defeated in his first attempt to be nominated for congress, defeated in his application to be commissioner of the General Land Office, defeated in the senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the vice presidency in 1856, and defeated in the senatorial election of 1858. At about that time, he wrote in a letter to a friend, saying, “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.” He went on to become one of the greatest U.S. presidents in American history.

Repeated failure is the hallmark of the world’s great politicians, businesspeople, artists, inventors, and athletes. After four years on a whaling ship, R. H. Macy took his hard-earned, diligently saved money and opened his own thread and needle shop in Boston, Massachusetts. The store failed less than a year later. He tried again—in fact, several times over—only to fail over and over again. One hundred and fifty years later, Macy’s continues with more than 850 stores across the United States, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
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Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” As an inventor, Edison made over a thousand unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When an aide urged him to quit after several hundred failures, he replied, “Why quit now? We know of at least a hundred things that won’t work.” When a reporter asked him how it felt to fail a thousand times, Edison replied, “I didn’t fail a thousand times. The light bulb was an invention with a thousand steps.”

Most of us have heard of Babe Ruth who set a record with 714 home runs in his baseball career. But few remember he struck out 1,330 times on the way to that record. Most people know that Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine, but few realize he had to fail two hundred times before he found the right one. Nearly everyone who watches professional basketball agrees Michael Jordan is one of the greatest players of all time, but most people don’t realize he failed to make the basketball team his sophomore year in high school.

I have learned to view my perceived failures as a challenge to try the same thing another way or to modify my approach and perspective. In so doing, I not only grew wiser, but the outcome was also far better than I initially anticipated. God orchestrates certain defeats, setbacks, and failures so that eventually we experience the most victorious lives possible. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated or when it fails in its efforts to succeed—it is only finished when it fails in its resolve, never to try again. As Henry Ford once said, “One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.”

Like many who have gone before us, your life’s experiences, successes, and yes, failures eventually become testimonies, biographies, and histories that inspire others to press on until their dreams become reality. Because we are surrounded by so many examples of faith, we must get rid of everything that slows us down, especially sin that distracts us. We must run the race that lies ahead of us and never, never, never give up (Hebrews 12:1).