A young executive was called into the CEO’s office after making an epic mistake. In fact, it was a multi-million dollar blunder costing the company dearly! Fully expecting to be fired on the spot, the young man stammered out a quick apology with a promise to have his desk cleared out by noon. “What?” thundered the CEO, “We just spent a million dollars educating you. Get out there and try again!”

You can only imagine the shock that young executive had in the moment and the adrenaline rush it awarded him for a restart. His boss obviously believed in him and was willing to give him another chance. We could say that he worked in a grace-filled environment that allowed him to fail forward.

Failing Forward—what does that look like for you? We all experience failure and all love to be graciously forgiven and move forward. Unfortunately, we commonly judge others weaknesses by our strengths rather than measuring them according to our own shortcomings. Too often we get upset with our kids when they blow it. Yet we all want a free pass when it’s our huge mistake.

Consider Jesus’ attitude and posture towards failure. It is amazing that after three years one of his disciples committed suicide and another one—in fact, one of his closest and most committed disciples, Peter—denied any connection to him during his greatest crisis. Seriously, what type of leader was Jesus to carry on with people like that?

He was a serving leader who believed in mercy, grace, and forgiveness. Jesus created an environment in which those who followed him could fail forward. In fact, very early on, Jesus had them baptizing others and putting into practice what He had been teaching them. John 4:2 states that “in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but His disciples.” Luke 9:1-2 records that “When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.”

Did Jesus’ disciples always get it right? No, as we will discover in our next Wednesday post. But he empowered them early on, knowing full well that this is how people best learn, by failing forward.