What would you do to receive a fortune? A small town in northern Greece faced a tough decision. An eccentric Greek millionaire left his home town of Afitos two billion drachmas, (about 5.28 millions dollars US) to build a hospital. The problem was, his will stated that to receive the money, letters detailing explicit details of his relatives lives must be read aloud in the village square. Officials say the letters were included with the copy of the will and revealed embarrassing details about events they'd hidden for years.

The villagers of Afitos refused to read the letters, and will apparently receive the money anyway after a court ruling deleted the clause requiring the letters to be read aloud.

We often hide our failures and mistakes hoping no one will find out. Our Heavenly Father sees everything we do. Instead of proclaiming our faults aloud, Jesus asks us to confess our sin and mistakes to Him. He promises forgiveness and freedom from guilt to those who come to Him. Then Jesus provides the real fortune, abundant life today and the hope of eternal life in Heaven.

Israel's King, David committed adultery by taking the wife of another man. He tried to cover his sin with deception and ultimately with murder. He kept his secret from everyone except the Lord. God knew everything the king had done. David's sins did not have to be broadcast aloud for him to confess them to the Lord.

Psalm 51:9-10. "Hide your face from my sins, and blot out my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me."

—Reuters News Service,(Yahoo!News) November 8, 2001., Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell

In the motion picture “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” Flint Lockwood is a young man who wants to change the world. When he was a young boy, Flint’s mother encouraged him to pursue his scientific endeavors rather than go into the family business. The budding scientist proudly presented spray on shoes, genetically engineered birds, and even flying cars to the people of his community. His inventions were unique, but never worked out the way Flint planned.

Flint’s biggest project was to produce food from the skies by turning atmospheric water into foods like hamburgers, steaks, and Jello. At first, the rain of food makes Flint a hero with the community, but quickly the project gets out of control. While Flint only hoped to make life easier for people, he also hoped this latest invention provide the breakthrough he longed for in his relationship with his father. Flint hopes to earn his father’s love and respect, but fears all is lost when his machine that makes the skies produce tons of food threatens to destroy the entire world. As the community suffers the ravages of terrible foods storms, Flint must decide if will give up and walk away, accepting the label of failure. As the world faces disaster, Flint faces the biggest decision of his life; will he overcome or lose everything?

OPTION 1: Show Clip from “Cloudy With a chance of Meatballs”, Chapter 28, 55:05 to 57:26, then make application.

OPTION TWO: Describe scene and make application

Flint’s father walks through their backyard, hoping that Flint is all right after the latest food storm. He finds his son curled up in the bottom of a steel barrel. When his father sees Flint, he calls to him. Flint looks up sadly from the barrel, and replies, “Hey dad.” His father looks puzzled and asks, “What are you doing?” Flint replies,” Well, I tried to help everybody, but I ruined everything.” He pauses and adds, “I’m just a piece of junk. So I threw myself away.” He fumbles with several items in the barrel with him before adding, “Along with all these dumb inventions.” He holds up a few of his inventions, and declares, “This is junk.” Finally, Flint points at himself, and says the same thing, “This is junk.”

Flint’s father struggles to find words. He stumbles over a few syllables, trying to fall back on one of his familiar sea metaphors. “Look son, when your boat is listing…if it’s not running. You know.” Flint interrupts him. “Don’t worry Dad. I get it. Mom was wrong about me. I’m not an inventor. I should have just quit when you said. Flint’s father pauses a few seconds. Then after looking around, he says, “Well when it rains, you put on a coat.” He takes Flint’s lab coat and holds it up, indicating he trusts Flint to solve the crisis. Without looking up, Flint says, “Dad, you know I don’t understand fishing metaphors.” He stops and his words trail off in mid-sentence as he sees the shadow of his lab coat over him. Puzzled, Flint asks, “What?” He stands and takes his coat, whispering “My coat.” As he takes the coat, a smile breaks across his face as Flint realizes his father is offering the encouragement he has longed for.

As Flint stands there shocked, he realizes that instead of crushing him in a weak moment, his father has offered him the support he needs to go on. With renewed courage, Flint calls to his monkey “Come on Steve, we’ve got Diem to Carpe.” They march triumphantly back to the lab to to resolve the problem. Over the next few minutes, Flint’s mind flies as his plan takes shape. He describes the process with single words, “Redesigning, Virtualizing, Cutting, Welding, Wiring, Testing.” Then with his plan complete, Flint rolls out of the garage in his flying car. He declares boldly, “Flying Car too...Now with wings.” Instead of allowing his failures overwhelm him, Flint perseveres and overcomes.

APPLICATION: When we fail in life, many of us respond as Flint did—w e run from our problems and threw ourselves in the trash. Jesus offers us words of encouragement and calls us to get up and keep going. The challenge when we make mistakes is to use the strength the Lord provides and keep going, even when we don’t think we can.

John 16:32-33 (CEV) “The time will come and is already here when all of you will be scattered. Each of you will go back home and leave me by myself. But the Father will be with me, and I won't be alone. (33) I have told you this, so that you might have peace in your hearts because of me. While you are in the world, you will have to suffer. But cheer up! I have defeated the world.”

In 1971 the Macon, Illinois High School Ironmen, a small town baseball team had a remarkable run in the state baseball tournament. In those days there was only one state tournament--schools of every size played each other. In the semifinal game the Ironmen beat the favorites, Lane Tech, a Chicago area school.

Steve Shartzer, a pitcher who had fractured a bone in his non throwing hand, took the mound for the Ironmen in the state championship game. They played a valiant game, but in the end, the fairy tale season ended with a 4-2 loss. The accomplishment was enough that the team began to receive congratulations from the other team, the press, and their own fans. The ride home was a victory parade. Everyone was celebrating. Well, almost everyone; Steve Shartzer couldn’t believe there could be so much celebration after a loss.

Arriving in Macon he couldn’t bring himself to get off the bus and join the celebration. All these years later, he still cannot celebrate. “I guess I’m still upset that we didn’t win, and I’m not sure how to resolve that,” says Shartzer.

--Sports Illustrated, June 28, 2010, pp. 62-72 Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell

What can you do when replays of failure are playing in your head? One of my coaches used to call it “stinkin’ thinkin’.” I hate losing as much as the next guy, but effort is worth celebrating even when the outcome isn’t. Shartzer showed great courage in playing through injury—that effort alone is worth celebrating.

Jeremiah 32:41 (HCSB) “I will rejoice over them to do what is good to them, and I will plant them faithfully in this land with all My mind and heart.”

Students at a Virginia school now have a hard time failing. Recently, the principal of West Potomac High School decided to stop issuing an “F” or failing grade. The latest edition of the school’s report card showed many students received an “I” for incomplete instead. The principal, Clifford Hardison says the change is a “huge paradigm shift.” At the end of the last year, he counted nearly 2,000 Fs given to students. He says giving an Incomplete encourages students to continue to work rather than accept a failing grade.

Hardison said the students would only receive an failing grade if they fail to complete their assignments over the next couple of months. Not everyone at the school is pleased with the change. English Teacher Mary Matthewson said several teachers are upset because they believe taking away the F means students have less motivation to do well.

--‘F’ grade disappears at Fairfax County High School, http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/ap/f-grade-disappears-at-fairfax-county-high-school-108159204.html; November 15, 2010. Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell.

The issue of motivation is a key here. What motivates us to keep moving forward when we fail, and it seems like life is incomplete?

Philippians 3:12 (CEV) “I have not yet reached my goal, and I am not perfect. But Christ has taken hold of me. So I keep on running and struggling to take hold of the prize.”

In 2009, Cassandra Phillips launched a one-day conference celebrating failure in high tech world of Silicon Valley. The conference was successful for four years, and now Phillips says her conference isn’t needed any more because failure has become so common in high-tech ventures. In fact, according to research 30 to 40 percent of venture-backed start-up blow through investor’s money and up upwards of 70 percent do not deliver on the investment. Failure is becoming the new badge of honor and many entrepreneurs publicly discuss how they have faced the adversity of failure. Ashley Good, chief executive and founder of Fail Forward said, “Nobody wants to fail. It’s awful. You will never hear me say to celebrate failure, but failing intelligently is an increasing important skill.” She added, “You can actually say to yourself, ‘Just because I failed doesn’t mean I am a failure.”—Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell

Wearing Your Failures on Your Sleeve, By Claire Martin, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/business/wearing-your-failures-on-your-sleeve.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1, Accessed November 8, 2014.

Habakkuk 3:18-19 (NKJV) “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. (19) The LORD God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer's feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills. To the Chief Musician. With my stringed instruments.”

A new traveling museum recognizes more than one hundred failed inventions. The builders want to encourage humanity to “accept failure, learn from it, and truly achieve progress.” Some of the failed innovations are the Apple Newton, Google Glass, Harley Davidson Perfume, and the Kodak Digital Camera.—Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

Los Angeles will be home to the new Museum of Failure. The museum will feature more than 100 failed inventions. The goal is to help us “accept failure, learn from it, and truly achieve progress.”

Failure is not the end. The Bible tells of men and women who failed before they succeeded. Peter denied Christ at the trial before becoming a leader of the church. All the remaining disciples fled Christ at His arrest. The only one who didn’t flee is the one who brought the authorities. Jesus promised that the last shall be first. It is not how you begin, but how you end that counts. A museum of failure makes good sense. —Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell.

In Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek writes, “Spencer Silver, the scientist who is partially credited with the creation of the Post-it, was working in his lab at the Minnesota-based company, actually trying to develop a very strong adhesive. Unfortunately, he wasn’t successful. What he accidentally made was a very weak adhesive. Based on the job specs given to him, he had failed. But Silver didn’t throw his “failure” in the trash out of embarrassment. He didn’t keep his misstep a secret out of fear for his job or guard it closely in the hopes of someday profiting from it. In fact, the unintentional invention was shared with others at the company . . . just in case someone else could figure out a way to use it.

And that’s exactly what happened. A few years later, Art Fry, another scientist at 3M, was in church choir practice getting frustrated that he couldn’t get his bookmark to stay in place. It kept falling out of the page, off the music stand and onto the floor. He remembered Silver’s weak adhesive and realized he could use it to make the perfect bookmark! And that was the birth of what would become one of the best-recognized brands in history, with four thousand varieties sold in over a hundred countries.”

For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the Scriptures.

In his book, Bezonomics: How Amazon Is Changing Our Lives and What the World's Best Companies Are Learning from It, Brian Dumaine quotes Bezos as saying, “The whole point of moving things forward,” says Bezos, “is that you run into problems, into failures, and you have to back up and do things again. You use resourcefulness and you try to invent yourself out of a box.”