The Other Side of Failure

Many leaders look to those in Scripture and the more spiritually mature and accomplished around them and assume they have never experienced the same life-altering setbacks that afflict other mere mortals. Or, they imagine that the strongest in the faith could never make serious mistakes or make the kinds of devastating choices that undermine career, family, and faith. For many, failure is almost a foreign concept to what it means to live and lead faithfully in this world.

As Shane Stanford and Anthony Thaxton demonstrate, some of the most important stories of spiritual maturity in scripture happen due to the failures (not the successes) of those we consider closest to God — one only has to mention Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, Paul... the list goes on and on... as examples of the best of our faith whose lives were significantly shaped and impacted because of their failures. While we do learn much from their successes, understanding the impact of their contribution to God’s Kingdom calls us to paint the entire picture, including the failures.

Lessons from the entire journey of life are not just reserved for Biblical characters. As Stanford and Thaxton demonstrate, many of the strongest leaders learn as much from defeat, brokenness, vulnerability, unsettledness, and, yes, failure, as they do from victory. In this book, readers learn from those Biblical and historical leaders who seem to ‘get it right’ precisely in and through experiences of ‘getting it wrong’. With humor and levity the book shares very serious U-turns and dead-ends that almost cost some of the greatest and most profound leaders their careers, livelihoods, reputations, and even their lives.