When I was 11, I lived close to a skating rink. I remember my amazement the first time I saw someone skating backward – BACKWARD! He must have been the best skater in the world, or at least I thought so.
I got my courage up and tried it for myself. I jumped up to aim backward. Plop! Down I went. Obviously, I was not talented enough to skate backward. Maybe it was a fluke, so I tried again. Again, I went down. I turned around and skated frontward as God intended. Over the years I saw a few others who could skate backward, but obviously God touches a few people with special talents. I was not one of them.
Many years later I stood near an ice-skating rink and saw my 11-year-old granddaughter leap into the air, spin two complete revolutions, and skate away. Amazing!
There is more to the story than met my eye. Upon further investigation I learned that young Gwen (the skater) spent one and a half years falling before she was able to do the double leap. At first she fell and fell and fell and fell. One day she finally hit the trick. Over the 18 months she had fallen hundreds of times before she mastered the skill.
It made me realize that I could have skated backward if I had been willing to fall and fall and fall. Instead I resigned myself to skating the ordinary way.
There is a great lesson for all of us – “Those who would succeed must first be willing to fail.”
Let me say that again, “Those who would succeed must first be willing to fail.” That is how you all learned to walk or cook or write or skate. Everything great is at first difficult.
There is a great life lesson in the adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
It marks the difference between ordinary and great.
Lonnie Davis