"You cannot fail!" The voice of the Spirit of God tells me again as I pray and worry about the impending collapse of my business. It comforts me -- for a time -- but I just go right back to worrying when something else goes wrong. I have a fear of failure. This is paralyzing to me; it keeps me from doing things, making decisions and going forward.
I get it. I have an understanding of failure. What the Spirit tells me is true! In life, we cannot fail, unless we reject God -- and growth. There is no other failure. No matter what happens, life goes on; there is no end. Life doesn't come to an end, it only changes. I have seen people from all walks of life who worry about failure, from those living in the streets to the most famous man in the world. Yet, there is no failure. The fear is unfounded, it has no factual basis.
Around a year of age, children begin to walk. While learning, they fall -- a lot! In one case, a child we knew fell on a twisted leg and got a spiral fracture of the tibia, requiring a cast. Epic failure! But, it wasn't over, rather it was still in the beginning. She learned to walk, and is doing well to this day almost 20 years later.
All failure is like that. We see falling as having more meaning than it really does. It's normal to fall during the learning process; it's an important part of growth. Not trying because we might fall is true failure because we fail to learn and grow. If a child refuses to get on her two feet because she fell once and fractured her leg bone she will never learn to walk, run, and have all of the freedoms associated with ambulation.
If this is the case, rather than fear failure, it would be wise to expect failure, welcome it, embrace it, and be happy for all the times we fall. Then, after falling we can immediately get up and keep going, expecting to fall again -- gradually learning until we get it right. True failure is not learning or growing from the normal falls of life. God wants us to learn, that's why He sent us here. If we don't try, we reject His gift -- the gift of failure is the gift of life.
