In the Autumn of 1997, I successfully secured the position as Head of Maths at a medium sized secondary school, with a similar profile to the school where I had been working. I was 34 years old and seven years into my teaching career. I recall being quite pleased with myself – who knows, a few years in this middle management post and I might then be looking at a senior leadership role.

It is said that ‘pride goes before a fall’ (Proverbs 16:18) and although not an arrogant or pushy type, I had seriously underestimated the challenge this new teaching situation would present. Just four weeks in, I found myself in the Head’s office telling him I was quitting. I simply could not cope in a school where, I had soon discovered, the leadership was dysfunctional at every level and near anarchy prevailed in the classroom. My teaching career was in tatters, and I was broken by the experience. I recall sobbing in my kitchen as I contemplated my sudden demise.

This is what failure looks like – it is not pretty and those who suffer it must bear whatever consequences might follow. No-one likes failure and no-one really wants to be associated with those seen to fail. We recoil against it, almost as if we believe it should not happen and are often shocked when it occurs, especially in the lives of people whom we look up to and do not expect to fail.

We may be found to react in this way, but God does not. It is said of Jesus that, ‘He entrusted himself to no man, because He knew what was in man’ (John 2:24-25). Elsewhere in the scriptures, the Psalmist notes that God recognises we are but dust – a reference to our corrupted mortal state (Psalm 103:14). In short, God is not in the least surprised by our failure.

Failure comes in many guises. Indeed, some experience of failure may be considered beneficial or at least necessary, as it is an integral part of many learning experiences. The old Scouting adage, ‘If at first you don’t succeed…’ has some merit. We might describe such failure as ‘everyday failure’ and would recognise that our growth towards maturity requires us to deal with such challenges.

But the failure that left me sobbing in my kitchen has little merit. I would describe such failure as ‘catastrophic’. By ‘catastrophic’, I mean failure that has life changing consequences both for the individual concerned and their loved ones. At the time of the demise of my teaching career, my two children were pre-school age, and my wife was not working; so, it plunged us into an immediate financial crisis.

Any number of challenging and traumatic life events might fall into this category of ‘catastrophic’ failure. The collapse of a business, the breakdown of a marriage, financial ruin, a criminal conviction, the untimely death of a child, a terminal cancer diagnosis. I could go on and doubtless the reader could add to the list from their own life experience. Such events invariably leave us feeling isolated, bereft and broken, and questioning where it all went wrong.

The roots of our failure are often difficult to untangle. The Head at the school I had left for that ill-fated promotion, commented after the event that he had been minded to speak with me about the school in question – but instead he kept his council. I wish he had not – but would I have listened to him? I frequently find myself thanking God for protecting me from my own errant tendencies. Undoubtedly he does, likely more so than I will even know. But if I am sufficiently minded to pursue a particular course, who is to stand in my way?

In the case of those adverse life events that seem completely beyond our control (and not obviously the consequence of our own choices), we may still berate ourselves for some perceived shortcoming (be it real or imagined). Moreover, we may well question our faith and wonder where was God when I most needed him?

In my own situation, God’s imminence was remarkably heightened in the midst of my troubles. Most especially through his word, which seemed to be quickened to me in a way I had not previously experienced.

Reflecting on all of this theologically, it should come as no surprise that God seems unperturbed by my stumbling. After all, failure is writ large across the scriptures, both Old and New Testament.

I imagine that God’s expectations of me are realistically low, whilst his aspirations for me are unbounded. He is the good Father, anticipating the worst but always looking for the best. That, of course, is why He made the provision of his Son, leading Paul to declare that ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1).

Failure that is directly related to our own sinful actions is even more troublesome to unravel. Those of a conservative viewpoint will claim that a truly converted believer cannot fall into wilful and sustained sinful behaviour, citing John’s assertion that the one born of God does not sin (1 John 3:9). They will, typically, respond to an individual’s ‘fall from grace’ by questioning the validity and sincerity of their original profession of Christ.

At the other end of the theological spectrum, the Catholic Church views our propensity to sin as essentially hard-wired irrespective of any profession of Christ; necessitating regular confession and daily mass in order to maintain us in a state that is acceptable to a holy God. The principal objection to this understanding is that it appears to leave the believer trapped in the inevitability of sinful behaviour.

Now, there is more than an echo of this very condition in Paul’s cry of exasperation recorded in Romans 7, where he declares, ‘wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?’ (Romans 7:24). Paul goes on to answer his own question in the next sentence; but we are left wondering if his plight in relation to sin, so described, is a reference to his current position as a believer or his former unsaved self.

In the same passage of Romans, Paul speaks of the tension between the aspirations of his spiritual person to do what is right and the pull of his fleshly impulses to do what is wrong. It is hard not to conclude that this is a description of his present predicament rather than his former unsaved condition.

In Galatians, Paul speaks of this tension quite explicitly stating, ‘the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another’ (Galatians 5:17). Thus, as believers, we live with this daily challenge to fully yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, which necessarily involves resisting the sinful urges, impulses and tendencies arising from our fleshly nature. The painful reality for the believer, is that inadvertently or otherwise, we can find ourselves slipping back into former patterns of behaviour. Hence, Paul considered it necessary to admonish these Galatian Christians about some evident un-Christlike behaviour (Galatians 5:26).

Shortly before His crucifixion, Jesus assured His followers that ‘He would not leave them as orphans’, that He would send the Holy Spirit whom He describes as ‘the Comforter’ (John 14:16-18, 26). Elsewhere, we are told that the Spirit’s primary mission is to convict the world (i.e. humanity) of sin and judgement (John 16:8). This applies to the believer as much as to the unbeliever. This may appear of little comfort when we are in the midst of some adversity, but it reflects God’s overriding desire that we should be brought into, and remain in, right relationship with Him.  

Without the cross any such restoration would be an impossibility. Yet, the cross itself demands a response from us. That this is necessarily the case is demonstrated most poignantly in the account of the two individuals crucified alongside Jesus.

Both men equally guilty and under condemnation; the one’s heart so hardened by his sin, that he chooses to join in with the crowd of onlookers who are reviling Christ. In contrast, for the other man, the suffering of an evidently innocent individual brings his own guilt into sharp relief. Somehow, through the agony, he makes the connection that the one dying next to him is there for his sake – ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom’ (Luke 23:42), is both a plea for mercy and a recognition of the redemptive act playing out before his eyes.

Jesus gracious response to that individual, is the very same response he extends to us, when we cry out to him, in the midst of our brokenness. It is contingent only upon our recognition of any personal culpability and our need of his mercy. As the writer to the Hebrews exhorts, we must ‘draw near to his throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of trouble’ (Hebrews 4:16).

In the days that followed after my teaching career’s demise, God quickened to me the verses from Jeremiah, which speak of the ‘pot being spoiled in the potter’s hand, so he fashioned into something else’ (Jeremiah 18:4). Some months later I found myself being installed as the youth worker in training at my home church, and four years after that I successfully completed a degree in youth ministry.

He is, undoubtedly, the God of new beginnings. Whilst, I cannot say that the weeks and months that followed after my teaching career’s demise were particularly pleasant or easy (as noted above, we must necessarily deal with whatever consequences might follow from our situation), there is no question that God was true to His word and ‘worked things for my eventual good’ throughout (Romans 8:28).

Today, I find myself teaching again, as a well-established and successful Head of Maths in a wonderful school, where I could not be happier. It feels as if the restoration is complete, and I have arrived at the destination I aspired to all those years ago. Older, undoubtedly wiser, surely humbled, yet content.

We may well ask whether my experience of failure was necessary to achieve this particular end? Indeed, was it all simply part of God’s overarching plan for my life? I do not think so. God does not plan to my detriment (Jeremiah 29:11). But what I know, and can say, is that throughout that time His love for me was unflinching. This, surely, is because God’s love was never dependent on any inherent virtue or worthiness on my part.

If such experiences of failure have any redeeming feature at all, it is that they enable us to apprehend God’s grace in a way that we might not otherwise. As Jesus stated, ‘the one who is forgiven much, loves much; but the one who is forgiven little loves little’ (Luke 7:47).

Chris Follett – June 2023