The Fruit of Failure

 

One of the questions we discussed in the Methodist Identity: Our Story class was how John Wesley's experience in Georgia prepared him for fruitful ministry later. 

Wesley’s experience in Georgia – his failure in Georgia – prepared him in at least two ways for a fruitful ministry later.  On the way to Georgia, he encountered a group of Moravians.  Watching them and their devotional practices during frightening ocean experiences helped him to see that his relationship with God could be closer.  He believed if his faith had been stronger, he would have been less frightened as he saw the Moravians were.  Whether this is true or not, it did create in him (or enhance) a yearning for something more.  Secondly, his failure as a missionary, even up to and including legal charges, created a new humility in John.  He left Georgia less reliant on himself and his own beliefs and abilities.  Amy Oden calls it a “heart broken open.”  He is more prepared to rely on God than he was before.

What is the role of failure in our ability to have fruitful ministry? I can see how John's new humility would open him to new ways for relating to other people and to God. When we learn from our mistakes - what we should do and should not do - and when we allow failure to transform us from what we were into something new and better, we are growing, aren't we? We are allow God's grace to sanctify us.

I doubt any of us like the pain of failure or humiliation (John Wesley left Georgia fleeing from legal charges). We should take care not to waste the pain.