You're Not Defined by Your Failure

“If you’re not defined by your success, you’re not defined by your failure.”

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Neither success nor failure defines us.

What do we do with failure? Miroslav Volf insists that neither success nor failure defines us. Our value, rooted in God’s love, transcends achievement or defeat. Reflecting on forgiveness as a daily miracle, Volf describes how love “peels off the wrongdoing from the person,” releasing both wrongdoer and victim to reconciliation. “You are not your deed,” he says. Forgiveness breaks the binding of guilt, opens new relationship, and allows life to begin again.

Miroslav Volf is Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. His work focuses on forgiveness, reconciliation, and human flourishing.

Highlights

“Failure doesn’t have the last word about you.”
“If you’re not defined by your success, you’re not defined by your failure.”
“When I forgive, I don’t count the transgression that somebody has done to me against them.”
“The miracle of forgiveness is that you can kind of peel off the wrongdoing from the person.”
“You can do almost every day the miracle of forgiveness.”

Failure and Identity

“Failure doesn’t have the last word about you.”
“If you’re not defined by your success, you’re not defined by your failure.”
Human worth is not made up of deeds or sufferings but of integrity grounded in divine love.

Failure in Relationships

Failure is often most painful in love: “Sometimes failure concerns very intimate relationships… people that we love.”
The moral question becomes: “How do we build a bridge to the other person after failure has occurred?”

The Practice of Forgiveness

Forgiveness means “I don’t count the transgression that somebody has done to me against them.”
It is a release—a gift detaching deed from person.
“The miracle of forgiveness is that you can peel off the wrongdoing from the person.”
This detachment opens reconciliation: “Wrongdoers and wronged persons can come back to one another.”

Miroslav Volf is Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. His work focuses on forgiveness, reconciliation, and human flourishing.

Highlights

“Failure doesn’t have the last word about you.”
“If you’re not defined by your success, you’re not defined by your failure.”
“When I forgive, I don’t count the transgression that somebody has done to me against them.”
“The miracle of forgiveness is that you can kind of peel off the wrongdoing from the person.”
“You can do almost every day the miracle of forgiveness.”

Failure and Identity

“Failure doesn’t have the last word about you.”
“If you’re not defined by your success, you’re not defined by your failure.”
Human worth is not made up of deeds or sufferings but of integrity grounded in divine love.

Failure in Relationships

Failure is often most painful in love: “Sometimes failure concerns very intimate relationships… people that we love.”
The moral question becomes: “How do we build a bridge to the other person after failure has occurred?”

The Practice of Forgiveness

Forgiveness means “I don’t count the transgression that somebody has done to me against them.”
It is a release—a gift detaching deed from person.
“The miracle of forgiveness is that you can peel off the wrongdoing from the person.”
This detachment opens reconciliation: “Wrongdoers and wronged persons can come back to one another.”