The Road to Courage: Facing Failure

The Question: What If
In the 1950's, five men, young, enthusiastic, and in the prime of life, felt a call to tell people about Jesus.  They began reaching out, sending gifts to this tribe of people widely known for being withdrawn and using force without provocation.  Hearts pounding, nervous grins on their faces, these five men went out one day to make contact and meet these people face-to-face.  Their first encounter was successful.  They returned a second time, eager to continue building the relationships that had begun to form.  All five were killed by people who had been friendly mere days earlier.

Makes our failures sound a little trifling, doesn't it?  At least we're still alive.

What if these five young missionaries, Jim Elliot and Nate Saint among them, had paused to ask, "What if?"  What if they had asked, "What if we fail?"  "What if they don't want to see us?"  "What if this doesn't do any good?"  "What if we die?"

They probably did ask those questions.  I guarantee you their wives asked them.  And they went anyway, even knowing the worst that could happen.  The worst happened, they failed, and they seemed to have accomplished nothing.

The Lie
"If you fail this, your life is over."

You fail this test?  You'll fail the class.  You'll drop out of school.  You'll never make anything of yourself.  Your life is over.

You fail to impress this person?  You'll never make any friends.  You'll be a recluse the rest of your life.  Your life is over.

You fail to obey God?  God will leave you.  You won't be under His protection.  You'll be open to attack on every side, and you'll probably go to hell.  Your life is over.

The "Even If"
"Even if you fail, life will go on, and it is an opportunity to see the Lord bring about His redemptive plan in your life."


You fail this test?  Yes, you might fail the class.  You might even have to drop out of school (although the answers we come up with to our what-ifs are rarely grounded in reality and what we know is likely to happen).  But even if that happens, do you truly believe God cannot find you there?  He still loves you.  He has a plan for you.  If you believe He is limited by a test, or an interview or an application or a business venture, you are worshiping the wrong God.

You fail to impress this person?  They might not be your friend.  But Jesus Christ is.  He has no need to be impressed by you.  Even knowing all your dirty little secrets and the times you walk into walls when nobody's around, He still calls you friend (John 15:15).  He will be sufficient in the midst of a lost chance.  Who knows but that that relationship could have been harmful for you.  He has deemed you do not need it; rest there.

You fail to obey God?  Tread softly here.  Fear of the Lord is the only fear we are given permission to have -- in fact, commanded to have.  "Let them fear death who do not fear sin," wrote Thomas Watson.  Sinning should not be comfortable, and perhaps we should be a little afraid of it.  But "fear has to do with punishment," and we no longer stand condemned who are in Christ Jesus (1 John 4:18, Romans 8:1).  That is not license to continue sinning; that is freedom (Romans 6:1-2).

God cannot change.  He loved you once, He will love you always.  He protected you once, He will protect you always.  It is not dependent on you.  Fear God, but do not fear His wrath.  It has been already spent.

And if you fear the barrage of temptation that is thrown at us every day, stand upon the promise of God that He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13).  There is no need to fear temptation.  There is an escape; you just have to call upon the One who knows what it is.  I guarantee you He will help you find it.


The story of the missionaries did not end with their deaths.  Rachel Saint and Elisabeth Elliot returned to the men who had killed their brother and husband, with full knowledge that they could meet the same fate.  They did not.  They loved and shared the Gospel with this tribe that had given them every reason to retaliate in anger, and because of it, lives were changed.  Failure was turned into success beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

The God who "gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were" is not troubled by failure (Romans 4:17).  He doesn't sit down with a puzzled expression, thinking, "I was really banking on her passing that final.  I'm totally stumped about where to go from here," "If he'd only answered that interview question, then maybe I would have something to work with," or perhaps, "Man, now that those guys killed My missionaries, I can't do a thing!"  How much credit we give ourselves!  He already knew.  He already has it all worked out.  Failure isn't the end.  After all, Jesus had one of the most victorious lives ever, yet He appeared to have a real problem with failure.  He didn't show up to Lazarus' sick bed and heal him.  He had issues getting the Sabbath quite right the way the Pharisees wanted.  He didn't even get Himself down from a cross after being mocked and beaten!  Talk about a humiliating failure for a supposedly infallible God.

"This sickness will not end in death," He said of Lazarus (John 11:4).  He didn't say it wouldn't include death.

Your life will not end in failure.  Not when it is fully, completely surrendered to the One who delights in making beauty out of ashes -- but that does not mean it will not include failure.  If we always succeeded, we might fall victim to thinking we could do this life on our own.  Let us do our best, unto the Lord, and then allow Him to redeem our inevitable failures.  We would miss out on a true delight in the supernatural if we never had anything for Him to miraculously work for our good.

"It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory; it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your face, for You loved them."  | Psalm 44:3

The Road to Courage: Introduction

The phrase, "I'm sorry."

The thought, "I'll never get married."

An important school assignment.

The desire to stay in bed all day.

What do all these things have in common?

Fear.  "I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time" = I'm afraid I'm not important enough for you to enjoy talking to me.  "I'll never get married" = I'm afraid no one will ever want me.  An important school assignment = I'm afraid that if I don't do well on this, my whole life is over and I'll never achieve my dreams.  Staying in bed (bar some illness or serious sleep deprivation) = I'm afraid that what's out there is worse than staying in a dark room with the covers over your head all day.

Fear has slipped so much into our everyday lives, and we don't even notice it.  We even say it casually to express disappointment: "I'm afraid that's not possible."  "I'm afraid I have other things to do."  We say it and don't even notice.  "I'm afraid I'm going to forget everything I studied."  "I'm afraid we're not going to have anything to talk about."  "I'm afraid...afraid....afraid..."

And we are.  Confession's a problem for most Christians, but we seem to have no trouble confessing this guy.

We are so afraid, even as Christians, and somehow miss the fact that we are told three hundred and sixty-six times not to fear in Scripture.  But even once we realize that...what in the world are we supposed to do about it?  I mean, I can stop lying by sheer willpower.  I can stop speaking badly about others.  I can even stop complaining (I can, I really can).  But how am I supposed to stop my sympathetic nervous system from going into overdrive? I can bite my tongue, but my heart rate likes to do a thing of its own.

We've got to go deeper than just fear itself.  We have to get behind the fear and look at where it's coming from.  We have to understand the problem; fear is just the symptom.

"Avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie." -Fyodor Dostoevsky

"Fear is just a lie."  -Tenth Avenue North (inspired by above quote)

"FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real."  -Beth Moore

You've probably heard this before.  Fear results from believing a lie.  Okay.  I've known that for years.  It didn't help me.

My problem, you see, was that I didn't identify each specific lie until it had completely taken root and established itself in a pretty little fear completely detached from the lie itself.  Eventually, I developed an anxiety disorder, all while I was exclaiming, "I don't know what I'm worried about!"

This is kind of an experiment, and I'm doing it to try to help both me and you at the same time.  Let's get messy.  Let's get practical, because I have a problem when people say things like, "Let God take the pen!" and I'm like, "Great!  ...How?"  We seem to get lost and tangled in the practicalities; we know what's wrong, and we know what we want the end result to be, but how on earth do we get from here to there?

In the first series I've ever done, let's walk through some fears together.  Let's identify the "What if?", the lie behind every fear, follow it through, and find that the Lord can meet us on the other side.  Up first, coming at you sometime next week: Fear of Failure (whether getting-an-F-on-a-test or plunging-back-into-addiction-type failure, we'll talk about it).

Have something particular, a fear you want help following through?  Email me at eternalsignificance(at)gmail(dot)com.  I can't promise brilliance or even profoundness, but I'll try to walk it through.

Meanwhile, encouragement: "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will not be shaken." Psalm 62:5-6

Confessions Of A Once-Broken Heart

If you turn back a year in my journal, you will find the following question on April 14: "Will it ever be okay?"

We call Jesus the Healer of our hearts.  But that question was penned nearly a year after an experience that left me feeling confused, shattered, and beyond the reach of grace.  And even just a few months ago, in the wake of difficult confessions and all the remembering and reliving that comes along with that, you can find the words, "I'm so frustrated and tired."  "I don't know what's going on with me."  "My heart is so worn."

And somehow, even though this topic haunted the pages of my journal for nearly three years, it vanished a few months ago and hasn't returned until I wrote this declaration of victory and healing in it last night.

My journey was long, probably longer than most.  Circumstances made it hard to understand and find closure; my own hypocrisy from years past followed me for much longer than I would have liked.  But I am here to tell you: Jesus Chris heals broken hearts.

He does not do it quickly, certainly not as quickly as we want Him to.  But I am convinced that the reason it took so long was that He was not interested in a quick fix.  He wanted to take His time and deal with every little part of my heart.  He wanted to deal with habits and mindsets that had influenced my path to this heartbreak.  He wanted to root out deep-seeded insecurities and lingering anxieties.  He didn't want me to have a good-as-new heart.  He wanted me to have a new one, completely remade, more in His image than ever before.

Our culture is obsessed with quick fixes.  We slap a Band-Aide on it.  We turn to drinking.  Drugs.  Sex and relationships.  Anger.  Bitterness.  Or the most common one, gritting our teeth and "moving on."

So when I tell you that it will take years for Jesus to heal your broken heart, I understand how that could be discouraging, even upsetting.  That is why I am writing this.

I want you to know that it's worth it.

Jesus thinks it's worth it to pour years into healing you.  Isn't that comforting?  He's not going to hand you Advil and an ice pack and send you on your way to wait out the pain.  When He deals with a specific pain, He deals with it -- so that it never gets to come back.  So that you can recognize its lies when it tries to creep back in.  So that you don't just have relief -- you have victory.

If your heartbreak was caused by your own actions, He wants to show you a better way.  He wants to reveal the lies in your life that told you that you needed to do such-and-such.  And He wants to forgive you and make your confidence in Him complete, wants to satisfy you with Him instead of whatever it is you were chasing.

If you suffered at the hands of another, He wants to remind you of who you really are.  He wants to show you every tiny consequence of what happened to you and bear them all away on the cross.  He wants to lead you along the difficult road to forgiveness, and He wants to love you when you cry.

It will be slow.  It will probably be painful.  But please believe me when I tell you it's worth it to allow Jesus Christ to restore you.  Shun quick fixes.  Let the ultimate Healer do His work -- slowly, thoroughly, completely, perfectly.

You can be free.

It will one day be okay.

Cling to your precious Jesus as He carries the pieces of your once-whole heart and binds them back together with His blood and tears and love.

He hasn't forgotten you.  He isn't refusing to heal you.

He just knows you're worth the time.

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."  ~Psalm 147:3

The Day Jesus Left Me

God is perfect.  

God cannot stand in the presence of sin.

I sin.

God cannot be with me when I sin.

Anyone ever follow this logic?  I did.  For...well, forever.  I'd lie in bed, sinning up a storm (minds are nasty little betrayers sometimes), and I knew -- knew -- that God had left me.  I was confident that He had to go away for a while until I'd gotten a grip.  Because God cannot stand in the presence of sin, and behold!  Sin!  He could come back tomorrow, after I'd gone to sleep and forgotten about my little "episode" with pride or worry or lust or anger the night before.

But wait, logic began to whisper, if He can't stand in the presence of sin, then why in the world was His company of choice on earth the sinners?

And how about the fact that He's omnipresent?  Doesn't thinking He flees from sin defy His very nature?

The problem, I think, is our phrasing.  "God can't stand in the presence of sin."  That's not a verse, by the way, I'm putting it in quotes because I've heard it said that way so many times.  It is true that God cannot allow sin into His perfect, heavenly kingdom.  It is true that He Himself does not sin.  But do you see what we've done to God with that one little phrase?  We've turned Him into a child in a PG-13 movie, covering His ears and eyes so that He won't be traumatized.  We've diminished Him, made Him fearful, made it seem as though He runs and hides, shrieking and screaming whenever He sees sin.

But that's not what a king does when he sees his enemy.  He doesn't sheath his sword and run away, saying, "I can't look at you!  Not listening!  Not listening!"  No!  When the king sees his enemy, he draws his sword, he fights, and he conquers.

And the same goes in our lives.  When Christ sees us sinning, He doesn't get a nervous look and timidly back out of the room, saying, "See you in the morning, I need some time to center and recover from this."  He draws His sword.  He's ready to fight.  And if He fights, He'll win.

But what if we think He's not there?  He's standing, waiting to come defend us, waiting to avenge His beloved, and we're mourning His absence, wondering why it's worth it to obey a God who leaves every time we screw up.  We're fighting alone.  Fighting and failing.  Failing and waving goodbye to Someone who's still there.

It's backwards, you see.  For years, I thought that the fear of Jesus leaving every time I sinned would be enough to prevent me from messing up.  Didn't help.  I'd fall anyway.  But everything changed the day I realized, He won't leave me, even if I fall.  Suddenly I loved Him more...because the Jesus who stays to fight and defend is more loveable than the wimpy, "Sorry, gotta go" god I'd created.  Suddenly I wanted to please Him more.  Suddenly, I had access to the very power of Christ while fighting temptation.

Suddenly, I wasn't losing nearly as often.  Fear wasn't strong enough to combat temptation.  A real and powerful God with a heart to rescue and save -- well, He was.

Grace isn't Jesus forgiving you after you've muddled through a few hours without Him, long enough that you both just kinda "forgot" about what you were doing.  Grace is the fact that you never fight alone, even when you fall.  Grace is the fact that He doesn't leave, even when you fail Him.  Grace is the fact that He not only stood in the presence of sin; He became sin.  And in so doing, He defeated it -- defeated it so thoroughly that you don't have to sin anymore.

But He won't leave even if you do.

So the day Jesus left me -- it didn't exist.  Even while I was pretending He wasn't there, He was living "to make intercession" for me, He who is able to save to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25, NKJV).

God is perfect.

God cannot abide sin.

I sin.

God loves me too well, and hates sin too much, to leave me to fight it alone.

Revive

My last nights at home before returning to school from Christmas break, I read through my old journals.  They started the day I turned 13, and read right up to the present.  Sometimes entire months, even years, were missing from their pages.  But what was there was dramatic and random and sometimes downright hilarious in its youthful confusion.  I was convinced at age 13 that I would be a professional dancer and poured all my prayers into trying to convince God of the same thing.  If you went to high school with me, there's probably a prayer for you in the pages of my journals, so if you need to know on what day you had a crisis, I've gotcha covered.  If anyone has any idea who I had a crush on in the first half of 11th grade, please enlighten me, because I've completely forgotten the identity of this all-important "him" who is namelessly prayed for (and by "for" I mean, "for me, he needs to be mine").

There is so much contradiction and hypocrisy and earnestness and exaggeration in these pages that I can hardly read them without being torn between laughing and crying.  I was a mess.  I wrote so many things that I firmly and whole-heartedly believed in, wanting to live by them until the end...and mere weeks later, I was thanking God for circumstances that totally contradicted the lifestyle I had claimed to want.

My journal probably knows more about me than my mom (and she knows a lot).  But Jesus knows even more.  He knows each word before I pen it; He knows the words that never make it to the page, the ones engraved into my heart that I can't fully grasp enough to bring out.  That's a little daunting.  What's He seen?  What's He thinking about?  Are there sins I haven't even confessed because I can't remember them??  Woe is me!!

Perspective.

"I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him."  -Isaiah 57:18

I have seen his ways...

...but I will heal him.

I just want to breathe that in for a minute.

I have seen his ways.  I know.  I saw it happen.  I knew it was going to happen.  I cried.  It was awful.  I wish he hadn't done it.

But I...will...HEAL him.

Look at a little context: "For this is what the high and lofty One says -- He who lives forever, whose Name is holy: 'I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite...I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him...Peace, peace, to those far and near.'"  -Isaiah 57:15,18,19b

What??

Praise Him, for He knows and He heals.  He sees and He comforts.  He is holy but He dwells with the lowly.  He's read my journals and He's read between the lines, and He's seen the times I've hurt myself and others and Him, and He heals.

He heals.  There is no chain so strong it cannot be broken by the blood and the power of the High and Lofty One, no place so far that He cannot speak peace to you there.  He loves you...He will heal you.

He healed me.

Words For 2013

"All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:16).

With those words washing over my racing thoughts like a gentle wave smoothing the shore, my heart slows and my breathing becomes regular.

I'll go nowhere in 2013 He hasn't already been.  He has written my days.  When I wake up each morning, He's already been there.  He's already seen it all.  He's already carried it to completion.  He's already won victory.  Nothing will happen to me in that day that He has not already taken complete control of.  There is nothing I'll face that He hasn't faced already, that first day that He wrote my story, that first time He smiled and penned an entire life with care and compassion and mercy and love...my life.  The life He died to redeem.  The life He wooed and won.  The life He carries and sustains and breathes life to each and every day.  The life He knows, inside out, because He Himself is its Author.  The life in which He will prove His glory; the life in which He will prove His faithfulness.

The days I feel in my heart the sentence of death...this will happen that I might not rely on myself, but on God, who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:9).  He knows the way that I take (Job 23:10).  When my spirit grows faint within me, He knows my way even then (Psalm 142:10).  He will shield my head in the day of battle (Psalm 140:7).  When I'm bruised, He will not break me; when I feel like a smoldering wick, He will not snuff me out (Isaiah 42:3).  Though my world should shake, though everything I thought was firm and trustworthy and steady be removed, His unfailing love for me will not be shaken (Isaiah 54:10).

I will live in safety, and no one will make me afraid (Ezekiel 34:28).

God has promised.  And He cannot lie (Titus 1:2).

And at the end of 2013 I will be able to say, as I can say of 2012: Never once did I ever walk alone.

How to Save an Atheist

I am beginning to sympathize with atheists.

Not in belief -- no, never!  A year in anatomy taught me that I have far too little faith for that.

But I am beginning to understand their persistent question: "What's the point?"

"Can't you live a worthwhile, fulfilling life without Christ?" they ask.  "Why do you need Jesus to be happy?  I'm perfectly happy without Him.  Are you telling me that everything I do is pointless?  Are you telling me I can't make the world a better place if I'm not a Christian?  Why should I add Him to my life when I can benefit the world just as much on my own?"

"Well," we try to say, "you're not really happy.  You just think you are."

Good try, but no one is going to buy that one.  If I'm out on the weekend laughing and dancing with dozens of cool people; if I have awesome friends; if I laugh all the time; and you try to tell me I'm not really happy, I'm going to raise my eyebrows, write you off as a freak, and laugh at you later with my friends.  It may be true, but try winning someone to Christ by telling them that their life is secretly miserable -- they just don't know it (poor souls!).

"But our sins are forgiven and we get to go to heaven when we die!"  Great.  Apart from the problem of making heaven sound appealing to someone who doesn't believe it exists, you might also try selling the idea of absolution of sins to a relativist.  Let me know how that goes.

There are those drowning in the world.  Those whose need is obvious, who are miserable, who are hungry for grace and meaning and life.  I'm not talking about them (although their need is just as great).  I'm talking about the happy atheist, the content agnostic.  How do we win those who are tickled pink not to be won?

Here, I believe, is our problem: We are standing shouting, "Want what I have!" but do not appear to have anything worth having.

We proclaim divine and radical happiness -- more joy, more freedom, more life -- but don't actually appear to have more of anything.  We aren't happier.  We aren't freer.  No wonder unbelievers question us -- we're no different from them.  Actually, we're worse off, because we have to avoid all those things that are so "sinful" and "pagan" and miss out on all the fun that they get to experience.  Who wants an ordinary life with the only difference being the things we aren't allowed to do as "good Christians"?  Oh, and a strange belief that God became a human and died tacked on for good measure to establish our insanity.

Who in their right mind, being currently happy, would look any further into that?

Christians, this ought not be so!!  Where are the Gladys Aylwards, with the power of Christ to stand in the middle of a prison and command the rioting inmates to cease?  Where are the Hudson Taylors, standing up even while infected with the plague in the confidence that death would not come until his calling to China was fulfilled?  Where are the Vibia Perpetuas, winning thousands to Christ by dying in the arena?  And "I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samuel and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed armies."

Do our lives look like that?  Because that, my friends, is what it is supposed to look like.

But we're too busy proclaiming "Christians aren't perfect, just redeemed" as an excuse to go on living sinful, self-indulgent lives with a great big "FORGIVEN" slapped across it; too busy running back to Jesus at night after running from Him in the day; too busy dealing with our own problems and vices and addictions and annoyances to experience true victory.

Have we stopped to realize that there is more to the Gospel than forgiveness?  There is more to the Christian life than a few moral rules?  There is more to loving Jesus than a ticket to heaven?

We aren't supposed to overcome sin because Jesus is a stick in the mud.

We're supposed to be rid of sin so that the very power of Christ can live within us.

We're supposed to be saved so that we're useful!  He has promised us "newness of life," but we're looking an awful lot like the old life with a few new rules that we don't even follow all the time.

So.

What if we stopped trying to convince people of the joy of the Christian life, and actually lived it?  If we're spending more time talking to our boyfriend or best friend than to Jesus Christ, we have no right to pontificate the benefits of having Jesus Christ as our self-proclaimed "Best Friend."

What if we got reacquainted with the Gospel?  If we have boiled the Gospel down to "forgiveness of sins" and "heaven when you die," we've lost sight of the majority of the Gospel -- and have no right to try to be its representatives.

If our life is anything less than the very presence and power of God Himself, no one is ever going to see a difference.  No one is ever going to want it.  They may ask you why you don't sleep around, but they're not going to join you in that endeavor so that they can go to a place they don't believe in.  They're just going to feel sorry for you.

But when suddenly our life has more -- when it starts exuding heavenly beauty, starts breathing heavenly life, starts wielding  heavenly power -- that's when they'll notice.  That's when it will make sense.  When we look different, when we look like Jesus, when we look like we're supposed to, maybe -- just maybe -- they'll see something they don't have.  And maybe they'll want it.

Yes, we are supposed to make disciples of all nations.

But first, let's remember what being a disciple actually means, and become that ourselves.

Let's have something worth having; something worth giving.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." | Philippians 3:12