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Turning Failures into Successes Theme: Trusting God with our "failures"
Object: A pad of Post-It® notes
Scripture: In his heart a man plans his course, but the
LORD determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9
I have something this morning with which probably every one of you is
familiar. They are called Post-It Notes. If you need to
leave a note for someone, you can just write a note and stick it on
their door. If you need to remind yourself of something you have
to do, just write a Post-It note and stick it up in a place where you
will be sure to see it. My computer at school has sticky notes all
over it to remind me of things I need to do. We use Post-It notes
at home to remind us to take out the trash, to go to the store, and pick
up the clothes from the cleaners. I don't know how we ever got
along before Post-It notes were invented. The Post-It Note was invented by the 3M company. That is the
same company that makes Scotch tape. The Post-It Note is one of
their best selling products and one of their most successful products
ever, but did you know that it got its start with a failure? A
scientist at 3M was working to try to improve the glue that they put on
their tape so that it would stick better. He came up with a new
formula for glue, but the new glue didn't stick very well at all.
It would stick at first, but then it was very easily pulled off.
He thought his new glue formula was a failure, but instead of throwing
the formula in the trash, he decided to share it with others in the
company and see if there might be some use for it. A man named Art
Fry started trying the new glue in different ways and finally he came up
with the idea for the Post-It Note. The rest is history! What started out
to be a big failure for 3M turned out to be one of their greatest
successes. Sometimes the things we try to do in our lives don't turn out the way
we thought they would. We were trying to do what we thought was
best for us, but it just didn't work. When that happens, it is
easy to just give up. Instead of giving up,what we need to do is
turn it over to someone else. We need to turn it over to God!
The Bible says that we plan our course, but the Lord directs our steps.
Maybe we know where we want to go, but just can't seem to get there.
If we will just put our faith and trust in Jesus, he will direct our
steps. He can turn our failures into success.
Dear Lord, help us to remember that you can turn our failures into
successes if we will trust in You. Amen.
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