I don’t do a lot of tagged stuff. Someone tagged me a while back concerning books I read, but i just started reading again so i would’ve had horrible answers. But my sis tagged me for “7 Things About Me” so I will oblige, only I don’t know if I can come up with 7 interesting things… so here’s 7 Things I’ve Failed At in my life.
1) Community College: I was put on probation (yes, at a community college) after one semester. I dropped out halfway through my second. Perhaps it was because I spent 90% of my “class time” in the computer lab.
2) ESPN Radio: This maybe is my fault, maybe not. I was an unpaid intern, working directly for Assistant Program Director (that’s second in command) at the Dallas ESPN Affiliate. I did really well everything he asked me to do, but wasn’t my jovial, talkative self around some of the other guys, thus making no contacts at all. Then he got really really busy and moved off to one of the Carolina’s. In the meantime, i was left with little-to-no-contacts and it never went anywhere.
3) Clear Factor: Once I started my own business to supplement the very little income I had coming in due to my transition from corporate work to ministry work. It was a storefront window-washing business, which has extremely low overhead and extremely high customer potential. I realized quickly that I wasn’t cut out for the sales / self-marketing part of the job. I could probably sell stuff at a retail place adequately, but i didn’t do so well selling myself. Instead I eventually sold my stuff to a friend, who eventually got out of the business as well ( I still own the company name “Clear Factor” if anyone wants to buy it from me).
4) The previously mentioned Ministry Career: I had it all figured out when i was younger. I was diabolically opposed to going to CFNI, and I was not interested in going to one of the larger schools. But I was “called by God” so He was obligated to make everything I touched in ministry work… after all, I was doing it “for Him” and if He called me, then obviously nothing I could do would fail… but getting your girlfriend pregnant, ignoring your responsibilities as a Christ follower, and convincing yourself you could do it on your own leads to “failure” despite and “calling.”
5) Novels: I’ve started two novels, both made it well into the second or third chapter (wow! that’s far!). I re-read them the other day and laughed at the writing. The concepts are still decent, so i think i’m going to pick them back up and re-write what i have, but for now, i’m still going to count it as failed (Despite the lack of skills I display on this site, it has been said by a few professors, friends, colleagues, etc that I have a knack for writing. I dunno about that, but I enjoy it none-the-less).
6) Music Career: My first “gig,” I opened for Darrell Evans, who at the time was one of the most popular worship leaders going. This was before Hillsongs went crazy and before the time of Crowder, Tomlin, Redman… Lincoln Brewster, who was Darrell’s guitarist, stopped to tell me to keep doing what I was doing and be true to who God intended me to be. Later I played for a few thousand people at a large variety show… several bands later, I’ve never done much beyond record the three songs that are sitting on virb and i’m not a huge fan of those.
7) This thing we call Life: I’m overweight and even more out of shape than I look (just ask the guys i went “jogging” with saturday!)… Not including my house, i’ve got nearly as much debt as my age in the thousands… I don’t show my wife I love her enough… I don’t teach my kids about Christ enough… I don’t allow God to work through me enough… I pretend to have it all together, when I don’t, often struggling with mild depression (my wife would probably say it breaches into the “moderate” level from time to time, but I try and keep things in perspective)… I’m still not sure what I want to be when I grow up… I play video games more often than I study or meditate on what God wants to do with me… and I can’t win a Scrabble for the life of me…
NOTE: This is not a “pity me” or even a depression-induced post… I look at these things and I look at where God is moving me, and I’m extremely grateful for learning what I have through all of the failures. I can see that He is evolving me so that I can one day remove #7 from this list, append #4 to say “early ministry career,” and, heck, maybe even take #5 off the list as well … It is these failures that have propelled me to a place that I can finally say “Lord, I can’t do anything without You because I’ve proven over and over that I will fail on my own… it’s Your turn”
So, what have you failed at?
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