LESSON 8: Learn How To Fail Gracefully
Jesus Knows all About Us
The Son of Man experienced those wide ranges of human emotion which reach from superb joy
to profound sorrow. He was a child of joy and a being of rare good humor; likewise was he a
‘man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.' In a spiritual sense, he did live through the mortal
life from the bottom to the top, from the beginning to the end. From a material point of view, he
might appear to have escaped living through both social extremes of human existence, but
intellectually he became wholly familiar with the entire and complete experience of humankind.
Jesus knows about the thoughts and feelings, the urges and impulses, of the evolutionary and
ascendant mortals of the realms, from birth to death. He has lived the human life from the
beginnings of physical, intellectual, and spiritual selfhood up through infancy, childhood, youth,
and adulthood— even to the human experience of death. He not only passed through these usual
and familiar human periods of intellectual and spiritual advancement, but he also fully
experienced those higher and more advanced phases of human and Adjuster reconciliation which
so few Urantia mortals ever attain. And thus he experienced the full life of mortal man, not only
as it is lived on your world, but also as it is lived on all other evolutionary worlds of time and
space, even on the highest and most advanced of all the worlds settled in light and life. 129:4.4
Learning How To Fail Gracefully
But life will become a burden of existence unless you learn how to fail gracefully. There is an
art in defeat which noble souls always acquire; you must know how to lose cheerfully; you must
be fearless of disappointment. Never hesitate to admit failure. Make no attempt to hide failure
under deceptive smiles and beaming optimism. It sounds well always to claim success, but the
end results are appalling. Such a technique leads directly to the creation of a world of unreality
and to the inevitable crash of ultimate disillusionment. 160:4.13
LEADERSHIP AND HUMAN FRAILTIES
Forceful ambition, intelligent judgment, and seasoned wisdom are the essentials of material
success. Leadership is dependent on natural ability, discretion, will power, and determination.
Spiritual destiny is dependent on faith, love, and devotion to truth—hunger and thirst for
righteousness—the wholehearted desire to find God and to be like him.
Do not become discouraged by the discovery that you are human. Human nature may tend
toward evil, but it is not inherently sinful. Be not downcast by your failure wholly to forget some
of your regrettable experiences. The mistakes which you fail to forget in time will be forgotten in
eternity. Lighten your burdens of soul by speedily acquiring a long-distance view of your
destiny, a universe expansion of your career. 156:5.7
TRUE SUCCESS
The career of a God-seeking man may prove to be a great success in the light of eternity, even
though the whole temporal-life enterprise may appear as an overwhelming failure, provided each
life failure yielded the culture of wisdom and spirit achievement. Do not make the mistake of
confusing knowledge, culture, and wisdom. They are related in life, but they represent vastly
differing spirit values; wisdom ever dominates knowledge and always glorifies culture. 160:4.16
MISSION OF ADVERSITY
Universe difficulties must be met and planetary obstacles must be encountered as a part of the
experience training provided for the growth and development, the progressive perfection, of the
evolving souls of mortal creatures. The spiritualization of the human soul requires intimate
experience with the educational solving of a wide range of real universe problems. The animal
nature and the lower forms of will creatures do not progress favorably in environmental ease.
Problematic situations, coupled with exertion stimuli, conspire to produce those activities of
mind, soul, and spirit which contribute mightily to the achievement of worthy goals of mortal
progression and to the attainment of higher levels of spirit destiny. 154:2.5