Failure is Awesome
The 1957 Imperial LeBaron sedan cost $6,200 when new, or nearly twice the cost of a Chrysler New Yorker. Or about half the cost of a decent house. But it cost the Chrysler Corporation $400 million.
Sales had been dropping across the Chrysler product portfolio since 1949. Recently minted Chrysler Corporation President L.L. Colbert pinned the sales slump on conservative styling, so he ordered a company-wide restyle. The overhaul assignment landed on the desk of new design chief Virgil Exner. Exner came up with a new design language for 1955 called “Forward Look,” and invoiced the company a research and development tab of $100 million. Sales improved for 1955, but Colbert wasn’t satisfied, so he ordered yet another total overhaul that would land just two years later, for the 1957 model year. The price tag: another $300 million.
Those 1955-1956 cars aren’t hideous. They weren’t bad cars. They just weren’t good enough. Perhaps this is how Christ-followers should consider their best efforts in light of God’s perfect standards:
“How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” (Isaiah 64:5b-6)
Any heroic effort throughout human history – yes, even a $100 million chrome bath – has failed to meet God’s standards for merit-based salvation. No one has succeeded in scrubbing out the stain of sin, although plenty have tried to cover it in glitz, tail fins, and fancy chrome tail lamps.
But the filth and failures have a surprising purpose. Filthy rags are universally detestable and prompt a strong desire for a thorough cleansing. Failure yanks at the heart strings and produces a desperation for perfection.
Sometimes that desperation leads a person to desire the heart change that God requires. In “Tender Lions,” an excellent book on parenting co-written by father and son team Brian and Jeff Becker, Brian put it this way: “Precisely in the failure of the past is the seed of the future success. Dealing with the shadow side and mistakes of your past and bringing them out into the light – sensitively, smartly, and timely – will demonstrate that failure is awesome.”
God hates seeing people suffer under filth, failure, and imperfection, and he longs to impart his perfect righteousness onto all his creation. After receiving his righteousness, his people are free to do their best work. The role of past failure is complete, and now their best efforts are blessed and adored by God, who says, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21)
Chrysler’s big changes in the mid-50s were more than superficial. They included a new box-rail chassis, a new front suspension called Torsion Aire Ride, and a new three-speed automatic as an optional alternative to the two-speed PowerFlite. It was called TorqueFlite, and it blessed fast Chrysler products for more than three decades, including some cars that were deemed failures. Yet on the inside, where it mattered, they were awesome.
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