It’s only the end of the first day of this new year, and already I’m a failure.

Only this week—albeit last year—I told a young relative that I had selected a word for the new year, which I hoped to make a key part of who I can be as the days go by.

The word is “listen”.

I told the Lovely Lady about my word for the year, and she laughed, wondering how that would work, knowing I am losing my hearing.  My sister-in-law, listening nearby, reminded me of their late mother’s onetime quip to another, older family member, that he needed, not a hearing aid, but a listening aid.  Apparently, I need both.

I still maintain my resolve to learn to listen.  To friends. To family members. To folks I don’t know.

To God.

Instead of responding to what I think people are saying after hearing a few of their words, I want to allow them to share their thoughts in full, as I attempt to understand completely what they are telling me.

And yet, before the year was an hour old, I had ignored that resolve, blasting through a conversation with two young ladies I love with astonishing disregard for their contribution to our discussion.

I have apologized to both of them.  I don’t feel a lot better about it.

Perhaps though, I should modify my first statement to say, not that I am a failure, but that already I have failed. 

It seems it takes more than just failing to become a failure.  It takes not trying again.  Rooting around in the failure, deciding that one can do no better than the failed attempt.

Surprisingly enough, I have also decided to adopt an entire phrase, the origin of which I was unaware when I spoke it aloud to the Lovely Lady on that very night. (She was tempting me with sugary desserts, you see—and I resisted.)

Begin as you mean to go on.

If you had asked me, I would have told you that Nora Batty, a character in an old English comedy show, The Last of the Summer Wine, had uttered the words originally when talking about training a new husband.  It turns out, the phrase wasn’t hers.

I used the tools I have at hand today and searched for the origin.  I was surprised when Google informed me that a great preacher and evangelist from the 19th century was known to have used it first in a book he wrote in 1886.  

Here’s the full quote from Charles Haddon Spurgeon in All of Grace:  “Begin as you mean to go on, and go on as you began, and let the Lord be all in all to you.” 

I think I like it better now than I did before.

Even after my initial failure in the new year.

There was no room for grace in the shortened version.  Not even room for assistance from above.

Begin—I did that part.

Go on—I didn’t do that part.

Failure.  Full stop.

Ah.  But I have decided now to go on as I began.  That is grace.  Let’s see how that works out.

I’m nearly certain I will fail to go on as long as I need to.  No matter.  God is indeed all in all to me.  If I let him be.

Still grace.  Forever, grace.

I have quoted the words before—words from Philippians, chapter 1:  “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”  (Philippians 1:6, NLT)

You see, He goes on as He began.  Always.

Without fail.

I am counting on Him to dust me off and send me on along the road of this new year.  And the next one.  And the next one.

The lady in the television show, Nora Batty, wasn’t all that great with her husband-training.  I’d like to be better at my task.

I think I have better help than she did.

You could walk along with me on the road, too.

He’ll keep us all the way home—even if we’ve made a late start of it.

Let’s begin.  And go on.

Failures and all.

 

“Indeed Christian, take heart in this revelation! The outcomes of your labors were never in your hands, but in God’s.  You have but one task: to be faithful.”
(from A Liturgy for Those Fearing Failure, in Every Moment Holy Volume 1, by Douglas McKelvey, Rabbit Room publishers) 

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2026. All Rights Reserved.