Free to Fail

“Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: [25] And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.”
Matthew 25:24-25

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
Philippians 4:13

Matthew 25:25 and Philippians 4:13 are two very different statements. One was made by a man who was afraid to fail and did nothing. The other was made by a man who was free to fail and did everything. As far as the biblical record is concerned, some of the greatest achievements in the history of God’s kingdom have come from very ordinary, imperfect people who have overcome failure to be used of God in a significant way. Their lives model some biblical principles for overcoming failure.

Do not try to hide or conceal your failures. Some people spend their lives trying to cover-up their mistakes. They become “prisoners of pretense,” retreating into fabrication and delusion. Their entire lives become a charade, a great hypocrisy. The first step in overcoming our failures is to admit them. We must be willing to honestly confess them before God and seek his forgiveness and restoration. If there is any place where we should be able to admit our failures, it is the church. Christians are not perfect, just forgiven.

Do not be discouraged by your failures. When you fail in life, you are in good company. Sir Walter Scott, Thomas Edison, Richard Byrd, Walt Disney all were considered failures before they went on to their greatest achievements. In the Bible, too, we read of failures whom God took and used to accomplish great things in his service. He took a slave hiding as a fugitive from justice and used him to deliver an entire nation from bondage. He took a woman who failed in marriage seven times and used her to win a city to the Savior. He took a crooked tax collector and made him into an apostle and a biographer of the Christ. He took a man who failed Christ in his darkest hour, denying Him three times, and used him to open the doors to the kingdom of God. He can do the same thing in our lives. God does not easily give up on His children. Like the tireless potter bending over the spoiled clay, He yet desires to make something good and noble of our lives.

Do not let fear of failure keep you from attempting great things for God. Some people are petrified at the thought of failure. They would rather face anything than the ego shattering experience of trying something and having it end in failure. So they adopt a “play-it-safe” philosophy and end up not doing anything at all. Just like the steward in the story of the talents they bury their potential in the ground and end up standing before their Master with little in their hands. It is not until we are free to fail that we are free to succeed. No one was more free to fail than Jesus. It is impossible to look like a success when you are hanging on a cross. Yet he let it happen. In selfless abandonment to the will of God. He was free to fail in the eyes of man that He might succeed in the eyes of God. If the church cannot risk failure in the sight of men, how can we succeed in the sight of God?

I’ll leave you with these words…

In Christ we are called to be secure enough in God’s grace to conquer our fear of failure. We are called to be free enough in our faith to take the risks that bring reward.