Some places feel like a 3D question mark. Kingsgate Mall in Mount Pleasant is one of them. If you know it, you know. A slightly time-warped Vancouver landmark—part practical strip mall, part cultural oddity, quietly defying the urban redevelopment around it. And it is of course where the temporary pop-up Museum of Personal Failures, can be found.
Predictably—on brand, really—the museum didn’t open on time. Later I learned the organizers had also failed to secure the correct domain name due to a misspelling of “museum.”
Inside this free exhibition were artifacts representing incomplete work, dashed dreams, abandoned goals, and good intentions that didn’t quite make it across the finish line. It’s the kind of experience best shared with a friend—the kind that sparks honest conversation as you settle into a cafe to debrief afterward.
A spoiler alert and trigger warning if you go, you will be confronted with a wedding dress from a failed marriage and the corpse of a tarantula.
In the Hall of Rejection, hundreds of rejected job applications were creatively assembled into a collective testimony of “we tried.” Visitors were invited to add their own—notes about opportunities they didn’t get, doors shut in their faces.
One artifact made me wince and laugh at the same time: a back brace from a failed attempt to reclaim youthful adventure after becoming a mom. The contributor’s statement ended with this line: “I probably should have taken a ceramics class. Or given myself bangs.”
You will almost certainly see yourself somewhere in this museum. And just as certainly, you’ll notice some of your failures aren’t represented at all.
The Failures We Carry Quietly
As a pastor, I often hear another category of failure—ones that don’t make it into museums because they feel too personal, too spiritual, too heavy to display.
They sound like this:
- If I would only trust God more, I wouldn’t feel so anxious.
- If I had real faith, I wouldn’t get so angry with people.
- If I could obey God’s commands, I would be content instead of wrestling with greed or lust.
- If I believed more strongly, I would give more generously instead of holding on so tightly.
Confessions of discouragement, doubt, and fear. We replay our shortcomings, measure ourselves against who we think we should be, and quietly conclude that God must be disappointed in us. But Jesus offers an entirely different route.
Jesus Was Not Shaken by Failure
One of the most striking things about Jesus is how unbothered He is by the failures of His disciples. Not indifferent—but unshaken. He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t revoke the calling. He doesn’t move on to a “better candidate.”
In fact, failure often becomes the very soil where redemption takes root.Failure does not disqualify a person from God’s purposes. Again and again, it becomes the place where God chooses to work.
Consider Peter. Jesus first meets him after a long, fruitless night of fishing—empty nets, aching muscles, and quiet defeat. It’s right there, at the scene of failure, that Jesus calls Peter into something deeper. Later, Peter will deny Jesus outright. And yet, after the resurrection, Jesus meets him again—not with shame, but with restoration.
Shaking Off the Dust
At one point, Jesus tells His disciples that when they face rejection, they are to “shake the dust off your feet.” It’s a vivid image—and a freeing one.
Failure and rejection are not meant to be souvenirs we carry forever. They’re not identity markers. They are moments, not definitions.
Shaking off the dust is permission to move forward—to release what didn’t work, what wasn’t received, what didn’t go as planned—and trust that God is still at work.
From Self-Effort to God’s Power
Jesus also reframes the entire conversation about success and failure with this simple truth:
“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)
That sentence shifts the weight off our fragile resolve and places it onto God’s faithful strength. It moves us from “Why can’t I get this right?” to “What might God do here?”
Faith is not the absence of failure. It is learning where to look when failure shows up.
An Invitation Out of the Hall of Rejection
The Museum of Personal Failures is honest, vulnerable, and strangely hopeful. It reminds us that we are not alone in what didn’t work out.
But the gospel goes one step further. It invites us out of the Hall of Rejection and into the grip of grace—where failure is neither hidden nor final, and where God’s purposes are not derailed by our weakness.
May you find yourself liberated today. Not by pretending you haven’t failed—but by trusting the One who redeems.