Fear of Failure: LIVE with Neil Anderson
Let’s talk about the fear of failure. Fear has to have an object. So what is the object there? It must be your definition of success or that of failure.
I remember years ago I was doing a doctorate of ministry class for a group of pastors, and I had them fill out a questionnaire at the beginning of what they wanted to get out of the class. One of the questions was: What do you fear the most? I think there were 17 students in the class, and 17/17—said in different ways—that what they feared the most was failure. To be honest, that really surprised me. I said, “Everyone here has a Masters of Divinity; you’ve gone to seminary. How come nobody said ‘fear of God?’” And then the motor boats came on: but, but, but, but, but…. The fear of failure caused me to rethink what constitutes success and what constitutes failure. Somehow those definitions and concepts have to be worked out in our minds. The problem is you can be a total success in the eyes of the world and a complete failure in the eyes of God—and vice versa! The other problem is that the standards for what we see as success in our world today greatly vary from one person to the other. For instance, who’s more successful: the best custodian a school has ever had or the principal of the school? Either could be equally successful. And how about academics? Somebody who gets straight As or somebody who’s struggling with dyslexia and manages to pass, which would be a great achievement for them and much more fought for. God hasn’t distributed gifts, talents, and experiences equally throughout the whole world. What may be successful here is more than likely not the same as what success is in Indonesia. However, when we look at Scripture in 2 Corinthians 10:12, Paul said, “Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”
The first real mention of success in Scripture gives us the first principle of success. They’re about to go into the promised land, and in Joshua 1:7-8, it says, “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Now what did that success depend upon? Favorable circumstances? Cooperation of the Philistines? No! Just one thing: whether or not they knew God and His ways.
Scripture allows us to boast in only one thing. “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord’” (Jeremiah 9:23-24). The ultimate failure, if you think about it, is to never know God. You’ve got one shot on planet earth, and if you go through it never knowing God, you’re going to be alienated from Him for the rest of your life. The first principle of success is to know God, know His ways, and live accordingly.
Paul is a classic example of an overachiever. He was able to talk about that in Philippians 3:4-8, “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” This man had climbed the corporate ladder of success and found that it was leading him up the wrong wall. That, unfortunately, is not too uncommon.
A number of years ago, a guy was coming to our church that had a law degree plus an engineering degree; he was a corporate executive and drove a beautiful, expensive sports car and had a wife that looked like she was a model. This guy looked like he was the epitome of the world’s idea of success. He even joined our choir, but the truth of the matter was: he wasn’t a Christian. The reason he was coming to church was moreso a last minute grasp for what—I’m not sure. He also had a lover on the side, and his wife had insisted that they come to church. So he played the game for a while. People at the church often said, “Why don’t you become a Christian? You would be such a great witness!” A witness of what? His secular accomplishments? Even he saw through that! The problem was that he didn’t want to humble himself. He wanted to take his ladder and just push it over to the other wall—but you can’t do that. You’ve got to go down to the bottom rung and start again like everyone else does. Tragically, he ended up leaving his wife and, to my knowledge, never making a decision for Christ. Success? No, he failed. What a tragedy that is.
The second principle of success is becoming the person God created us to be. That is God’s will for our life. We’ll probably not have enough time in this life to accomplish all of the things that we want to do, but you always have enough time to do God’s will. You can make a name for yourself in this world, but what name could you ever make for yourself that would remotely compare to being called a child of God? I suppose you could accomplish something in this world that would cause others to look at you as a successful person, but do you realize that all of the toys you accumulate on this earth, you can’t take with you. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it, but Scripture doesn’t give any advice whatsoever about career choices—as to whether you will be a carpenter, plumber, or engineer. What Scripture focuses on is becoming the carpenter, plumber, or engineer that God created you to be. In the mind of God, it’s always been character before career, maturity before ministry, being before doing. If we get that reversed, things start to fall apart for us. If we just focus on the person God created us to be, then we are prepared to do the good works that He has planned for us from the foundation of the world. Scripture doesn’t give you any type of principles for setting career goals. Setting goals for your life should have a personal meaning for you today; otherwise you are just setting yourself up for failure.
Suppose you have the personal goals to own a small business, be a good witness in the community, live in a comfortable home in the right part of town, and have a nest egg set aside for retirement—sounds like the American dream doesn’t it! With a lot of hard work, your business is showing a good profit, and you’re well on your way to achieving your goals. Then one day you discover that your trusted bookkeeper has been stealing money from the business. Instead of being financially prosperous, you find yourself facing the possibility of bankruptcy. To save the business, you mortgage your home and borrow money from your retirement savings. About the time your creditors are paid off, the market goes bad and you have to lay off employees. Finally, you sell the business and seek employment elsewhere. Your house is mortgaged, your pension is gone, and so is your business despite your best efforts. What you have feared the most has happened. Are you a failure? Not necessarily.
In reference to that we exalt in our tribulation. In Romans 5:3-4 Paul says, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” So where does your hope lie? God may come along and thwart some of your earthly goals in order to accomplish that. So the second principle of success is simply to make up your mind: “I’m going to be the person created me to be, and there’s not a person on earth that can prevent that from happening!”
The third principle of success is using the gifts and talents that God has allotted to us by bringing glory to God with those. Discovering the talents and gifts that God has given to you and using those to glorify God is one of the most satisfactory experiences that you could ever have in your life. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). I don’t know anything else that has a lasting satisfaction or the peace that comes from doing a job well done, a job that God has equipped you with. Always keep in mind that God has given some 5 talents, some 2, and some 1. Don’t buy into the lie that those with 5 talents are the only ones with any worth! That is definitely not true. Even if your gift(s) may not seem significant, it’s just as necessary as any other gift in the body of Christ. What God is going to hold you responsible to is what He has allotted to you. And He hasn’t allotted everybody the same thing. God will reward us according to how faithful we have been.
What is failure? Unfaithfulness. If you think about it… that’s what it is! What if you stumble and fall? That’s certainly not a failure. To stumble and fall again is not a failure. My life verse is Proverbs 24:16, “for the righteous falls seven times and rises again…” The only difference between a winner and a loser is that the winner got up one more time than the loser did. There was a corporate executive with high stature that was retiring, and a young executive at half his age is going to take his place. The young man visits the office of the retiring executive and asks, “Sir, how did you come to your tremendous success.” The man responded with, “Make no mistakes.” Puzzled by his answer, the young man asked, “So how do you get to the point where you make no mistakes?” “A lot of experience.” “What kind of experience?” “A lot of mistakes.” That’s true! You will learn more from the mistakes that you make than anything else.
Everyone has moral failures. Moses pulls out his sword and sets God’s plan back 40 years, Elijah—my hero—slays 450 prophets of Baal then runs from Jezebel, Peter says “I’ll go to prison and die for you” and then denies Jesus three times. It happens, folks! We’re not perfect people. But the ones that succeed in life dust themselves off, learn from their mistakes, get up, and go on to achieve some marvelous things.
Neil T. Anderson is the founder of Freedom in Christ Ministries. He began the ministry in 1989 and continues to spread the message of freedom to this day.