I was having coffee the other morning with my good friend Ben. Our conversation weaved all of the place as it usually does and at one point it stopped at failure, specifically why does a loving God allow us to fail? Does God, in fact, set us up for failure? These are tough questions to which I have found no easy answers. Certainly as Ben and I conversed we did not come to any spectacularly helpful conclusions.

Ben fancies himself something of a carpenter. He likes to work with wood and I wonder if he ever enters into any projects he knows he will fail at. Is there value to failure? I am not talking about the kind of value that people mention as a way of comforting those who have failed…I am talking about the kind of value that would actually cause one to consider doing something because they know they will fail.

As a Christian I tend to believe that for the most immanent (see previous post) example of God we need to look to Jesus. Christ is as close as we will come in this life to understanding the nature of God. Jesus interacted with his disciples in a way I believe God seeks to interact with us and quite often our response is not unlike the apostles’.

Look at the following text from Matthew 17:

“When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

“You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

While it is not clear if Christ sent the apostles to heal the son it is clear that they failed. They ask Jesus why and he tells them because of their faith (note to faith healers that Jesus does not point in this instance to the faith of the one being healed but the faith of the healer). In their failure Jesus finds room for instruction.

Take also the apostle Judas. It is clear Jesus knows that Judas will betray him before the betrayal occurs. Why would Jesus choose such a man as an apostle. Cynics suggest it is because he needed to be betrayed so he chose Judas specifically for that purpose. The text does not say this however. I believe he chose Judas as a follower for the same reasons he chose the others. He loved him and saw him as someone he could instruct and lead despite his failings. He chose Peter to take the mantle of church leadership after his death despite his failings. He chose Peter as an apostle knowing in advance that he would fail him and abandon him at the cross. Why not John? Why not the one apostle left standing with the women at the cross. The one apostle who appears to remain faithful through all trial. Who knows?

What we do know is that Christ finds failure to not only be instructive, it appears he does not believe failure to be a reason to remove his love and calling on our lives. Take the Old Testament example of God’s choice of David as King over Israel. Why David? God knew he would fail in spectacular fashion again and again. In some ways David’s failures not only serve as instructive to himself but as opportunities for God to demonstrate trans-formative forgiveness and grace.

We do not, as Paul warns, seek to fail so that we might have grace abound in our lives but we do in fact receive grace when we fail. This is why the warning from Paul is necessary. Do not abuse the grace of God that WILL come when you fall. He never says “don’t abuse this grace or God will stop giving it” he simply says “don’t abuse this grace”.

Failure, while not to be sought, is an important part of who we, as humans, are. Just as pain is an important God-given gift to alert us to the fact that something is wrong and needs to be addressed, failure can point us to God, or rather in our failings God draws us nearer to Him. Through our failings we find God’s hand pulling us up…or to put it another way “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9.