Fear of Failure
Jun 2nd, 2009 by ljkim
Our culture tells us that “winners” aren’t supposed to feel like failures…ever. Or at least we must only feel failure in the Tom Cruise sort of way (where he mopes around for a little bit and then regains his confidence ala Top Gun, Days of Thunder, and some other movies). But Jesus’ good news begins when we admit failure. Just the way fixing a broken leg begins with realizing it’s broken, and just the way you can’t “fix” a problem until you diagnose what the problem is…the Bible argues that there is no hope for us unless we realize and openly admit we’re broken.
The up side to this is that Jesus has a special relationship with people who fail: Peter, the disciple who promised to stick by him, but didn’t; the Samaritan woman who failed at marriage five times and was living with someone else’s husband; the rabbi Paul who failed at kindness and wisdom; tax collectors who failed at not-selling out for money. Jesus loves people who failed and knew it. Because in God’s view the only other alternative is to fail and not know it. Failure is our secular word for “sinner.” Jesus says He’s come to take sinners home and make them new.
Looking at the economy today, the companies that are in best shape seem to be the ones that took a good hard look and admitted they were in bad shape. The companies in the worst shape are the ones that thought, “No we’re doing fine, we’re too darn good to fail.” Go figure! The same is true with us. People have a tough time reconciling Jesus’ preaching: Sometimes he’d say hard words, “repent for the Kingdom is near!” And at other times he’d say much easier things like, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” But what only people who fail would know is that Jesus was really just saying the same thing.
So here’s something to think about: Are you afraid of admitting your failure? If you weren’t, what might you begin to admit and think about as you look at yourself? How might you be different if you were fearless in thinking this way?
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