Afraid to Fail

      Failure is frightening. Nobody wants to make mistakes or do what is wrong. This fear plagues everyone from the person who is scared of teaching a Bible class because they might bomb all the way down to the person who is afraid to even say anything in the class because it might be incorrect.

      Fear of failure plagues not only Christians, but also churches. There are a lot of churches that never really do anything because every idea they ever come up with is shot down. It may not work because of this reason. It could bomb because of that reason. They already know what they are doing is not working but are afraid to try anything else. What is worse is the number of churches acting as though their fear of failure and reticence to act is due to their desire to simply obey the Bible.

      This reminds me of the one talent man in Matthew 25:14-30. While the two and five talent men took risks, trading with their talents, the one talent man was paralyzed by fear.

      He was so afraid of losing what he started with that he accomplished nothing for his master. He was afraid to take risks. The amazing thing is when he was called to account he blamed his lack of achievement on his master. It was the master’s fault because he was so hard and demanding. The steward was simply demonstrating great strength by protecting what the master had given him.

      Interestingly, the master did not deny being hard and demanding. He simply stated that the steward, knowing the master’s nature, should have at least done something.

      Here is the key for Christians and for churches. We must not do what we know to be unscriptural. However, we must not be so afraid of doing something that does not work, that somebody may not like or even something we may find out was wrong that we do nothing.

      We need to change our perception of failure. Failure is simply a step on the road to success. I can ride a bike today because I learned from each time I fell. In what situation would I be if I was so afraid of falling that I never got on the bike? I could certainly boast of never falling off a bike. But then again I would never have experienced the thrill of riding one.

      If we step up to the plate, take a risk and fail, we need to dust off, ask why and learn. When we try again, we will do better.

      Instead of fearing failure in God’s service we should fear futility. What good are we as servants if we are not even trying to bring our Master some kind of return, whether it be spiritual growth in ourselves or in others?

       Better that we try something and fail, than try nothing and succeed.

Edwin L. Crozier