Fear of failure

Most of us are afraid of failure. If I think there’s a chance we might fail at something, I have to fight the temptation to not even try. If I asked you to name a great baseball player who would you name? Many might say Hank Aaron for hitting 755 home runs. But Hank also struck out 1,383 times. What about a great NFL quarterback? Joe Montana played in 8 pro bowls and won 4 Super Bowls. But did you realize he threw 1,982 incomplete passes and 139 interceptions … failure.

In the Parable of the Talents found in Matthew 25:14-ff we read of three servants entrusted with “talents” from their master. One of the three became so paralyzed by fear, he buried the talent until the master returned. He’d rather return only what he’d been given than run the risk of losing that talent.

Maybe today you are afraid of failing. You watch people around you succeed and yet you are crippled at the thought of failing to the point you don’t even try. If that describes you, I want to share 4 things with you that will hopefully allow you to move forward from fear; to take risks that honor God.

First, you need to discover that everyone fails … yes everyone! James 3:2 says “For we all stumble in many things.” In his book The Incomplete Book of Failures Stephen Pile shares some things that make this point. Michael Jordan was cut from his middle school basketball team for “lacking talent” and when he played in the NBA he missed 51% of his shots. Albert Einstein had a teacher who said about him, “He is mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” How many great men of the bible failed? Abraham lied and failed to have faith in God and His Word. David, well we don’t even need to go there other than to say the name Bathsheba. Here’s the point … everyone fails.

Second, we need to recognize that failure is not final. Psalm 24:16 says, “For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again.” History is filled with people who failed yet got up and kept going. George Washington lost 2/3 of the battles he fought during the Revolutionary War. Billy Graham when asked to preach his first sermon said he actually prepared 4 sermons and preached them all in less than 10 minutes. When it was over he thought “I’m not cut out for this.” Listen, failure is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. In fact God often uses it in our lives to make us more like Him. John Mark who deserted Paul later became useful to Paul in his ministry. How? Because failure was not final.

Third, we should recognize there are some benefits to failure. Romans 8:28 says that “ALL things work together for the good to them that love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Peter failed at just about everything he tried, from walking on the water to denying Jesus. But through it all he found there are benefits in failure. Here are the benefits I find: 1. Failure educates us. Thomas Edison had 10,000 failures before inventing the light bulb. 2. Failure develops our skills. How do you learn to ride a bike? You likely fell but you got back up and on that bike. 3. Failure tends to make us less judgmental. Without our own failures, it becomes easy to look down our noses at those who fail.

Finally, in regards to failure we need to stop comparing ourselves to others. Our society has become so competitive. But I believe success can be defined as doing your best. God defines success by obedience. Failure is when you don’t even try.

So what are you “failing” at right now? Your marriage? Your parenting? Some spiritual or moral failure? Whatever it is I don’t believe that it has to be final, or even the 1 thing that defines your life! Friend, there’s only one failure that is final … failing to respond to God’s offer of forgiveness through His Son. So you’ve fallen … get up, bandage the hurts, and go on with your life learning from your mistakes. Walk faithfully with your God!

Satan, temptation, and Pin fish

On our recent Fall Break trip to Florida, one of the things the boys and I like doing the most is going fishing down at one of the piers. We go to this place where all of the deep sea boats are docked for the night. In large trash cans are the remains of the fish they caught that day and we will take one of the carcasses out and use pieces of it for bait. Some nights it seems like every cast we are catching either a salt water catfish, white grunt, or small pinfish. Typically there are some cranes that hang out on the pier with us. Occasionally we will toss them one of these pinfish and they, as quick as lightning, peck the fish with their beak to kill it and then quickly swallow it. This year the cranes were pretty aggressive in coming up to us trying to get us to give them a fish.

So I’m sitting at my desk today thinking about this Sunday’s message and a particular verse caused my mind to drift back to our pier fishing. Peter says in 1 Peter 5:8 “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour”. Peter reminds us as Christians we have to keep our “guard” up because there’s an enemy seeking to “devour” us. The open door he’s looking for is our giving in to temptation and sin. Most of our sin is not done alone; there’s someone else who’s either complicit in the sin or a victim of the sin, but sin typically is not a one person thing.

Here’s the point I’m making here. Those pin fish are partially to blame for their own demise. Had they not given in to the temptation of the bait we used they never would have ended up on the pier, a place where they were not created to be, and thus we never would have had opportunity to give them to the cranes to devour. In order for Satan to “devour” us I believe we first let our guard down. Typically this involves a temptation to sin that we give in to, often involving other people (s). Then the next thing we know we are far from the will of God for our life, in a place He never intended us to be, and we are easily devoured by Satan. So what’s the key to not being devoured? Peter answers that in the first part of 1 Peter 5:8 when he says, “Be sober (alert) and be vigilant”. As a child of God the devil has you in his crosshairs and would love nothing more than to take you down. So no matter how alluring the temptation seems today, don’t give in.