Week 31 Day 4

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Failure Is the Best Teacher

I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved.

Psalm 119:47

Then shall my heart have inward joy,

And keep my face from shame,

When all thy statutes I obey,

And honour all thy name.

Lincoln was known to admit his faults and failures. He had, in fact, failed on many occasions. He lost no less than seven political campaigns before being elected president of the United States. But Lincoln looked at failure differently than most other people do. He used failure as a lesson. He learned from it rather than let it get him down. Once when speaking to a group of young people, Lincoln said, “I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points wherein I have failed as in those wherein I have been moderately successful.” Lincoln learned early in life that things go wrong. Life isn’t always as we might have planned or wanted it to be. Lincoln looked past that and let life’s failures and disappointments be his teachers. If we all had the same inclination, there’s no telling what we might achieve.