Un-failing
Discover the good news of God’s goodness amid our failure.
Stumbling Our Way into God’s Unlimited Goodness
No one wants to talk about failure, but we all miss the mark from time to time. Even our biblical heroes like Noah, Abraham, and Moses did things they shouldn’t have done, requiring God to step in and set things right. But that’s the beauty of life when we mess up: God is there with us every step of the way.
In Un-failing: Stumbling Our Way into God’s Unlimited Goodness, authors Shane Stanford and Anthony Thaxton explain how viewing failure as an opportunity for spiritual growth can help us through experiences and seasons when we seem to have lost our way.
From God’s perspective, knowing that free will means we won’t always do things His way, failure provides an opportunity for us to turn to Him. No matter what we do, His love is unfailing, and He makes all things work together for our good.
About the Authors
Dr. Shane Stanford
Dr. Shane Stanford is the founder of The Moore-West Center for Applied Theology, as well as the president of JourneyWise, The Moore-West Center’s faith-based media network. Previous to that, he served as a pastor and church planter for more than thirty years. Most recently, he was the sixth senior minister of Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, TN. He also served as host of The United Methodist Hour, a television and radio ministry reaching more than thirty million homes nationwide.
Stanford was awarded an honorary doctorate in divinity from Asbury Seminary in 2014. He also holds a Master of Divinity degree in theology and ethics from Duke University Divinity School, where he won the prestigious Jameson Jones Award in homiletics.
He has traveled extensively, sharing his personal testimony as an HIV- and hepatitis C-positive hemophiliac, husband, father, and pastor. Stanford has appeared on several media outlets, including Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, CNN, and Canada’s Harvest TV.
An accomplished author, he has written numerous books, including Cure for the Chronic Life (with Deanna Favre); A Positive Life; When God Disappears; Making Life Matter; Five Stones: Conquering Your Giants (with R. Brad Martin); Mosaic: When God Uses All the Pieces; and What the Prayers of Jesus Tell Us About the Heart of God.
He is married to his high-school sweetheart, Dr. Pokey Stanford, and they have three daughters and two sons-in-law.
Anthony Thaxton
Anthony Thaxton has won awards as a painter, an educator, and a television producer and filmmaker. He directed the acclaimed documentary, Walter Anderson: The Extraordinary Life and Art of The Islander (which was nominated for 4 Southeast Emmy Awards and won two—Best Documentary and Best Musical Score). Anthony’s vibrant watercolors have been featured on television and in numerous books, including Stations of the Cross and Love Letters: An Illustrated Courtship. He has produced Palate to Palette, for five seasons on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Anthony’s photos and videography have been featured on Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, CNN.com, and in the pages of Charles Stanley’s In Touch Magazine. He directed Morgan Freeman and Dolly Parton on projects. He is currently directing a major documentary on the life of famed writer Eudora Welty.
Anthony is married to Amy Bryant Thaxton, and they have two children, Bryant and Sydney. Anthony lives in Raymond, Mississippi, where he owns his own production company, Thaxton Studios.