.gif)
I have been thinking about the importance of body life in
the pursuit of personal holiness.
As counter-intuitive and uncomfortable as it may be, our personal growth
in Christ depends on our spending time with and exposing our lives to other
believers. It is in the context of
relationship that our sins can be exposed and we can share unconditional
love. Unconditional love is
relatively easy to give and receive when we don’t know one another. It becomes significantly more
difficult—and more powerful—when it is offered and received in the knowledge of
our unworthiness. It seems to me
that one of the biggest obstacles to experiencing the power of this
unconditional love is the fear of failure.
We live in a time of unprecedented inspection, measurement,
and evaluation. Unborn babies are
monitored and measured by ultrasound and sometimes amniocentesis. Newborn babies are given an APGAR score
at the moment of birth.
Pediatricians track growth and development. Standardized tests in school measure cognitive growth. College admissions exams determine
whether we qualify for the college of our choice. Once our education is complete, there are still more
evaluations and exams in order to become certified or licensed in our
particular field of expertise.
While continual evaluation has real benefits, it also
establishes a climate of success and failure by which we measure ourselves and
one another. Success is good;
failure is bad. This is easily
translated to “I am good when I succeed; I am bad when I fail.” Success and failure become the standards
by which we determine our worth and the worth of others. As long as we live by these standards,
it is very difficult for us to expose our weaknesses and admit to someone that
we have failed. The drive to avoid
failure leads us down a path on which we either hide or play the “Compare and
Compete” game. The game is pretty
simple: We define success in terms of comparing ourselves with others (on our
own terms, of course), and as long as we compare favorably to at least a few
people, we win. The competition
associated with playing the Compare and Compete game, however, makes it very
uncomfortable for us to reveal weakness or to fail in any way. We therefore become quite adept at
protecting ourselves by minimizing the spiritual and relational risks we take.
It doesn’t take too much study of the Gospels to see that
Jesus didn’t play the Compare and Compete game. His worth was based on His identity as the Father’s Son and
on their relationship. It is also
clear that Jesus was operating from a perspective that makes the concepts of
success and failure irrelevant. It
is easy for us to think that as God, Jesus didn’t need to worry about
failing—He couldn’t! I believe,
though, that Jesus didn’t worry about failing for a more profound reason:
success and failure are insignificant if not downright irrelevant concepts for
God. Certainly there were and are
many people who look at Jesus as a failure, but their opinion is tied to their
human perspective rather than God’s.
We can see God’s view of failure quite clearly in Jesus’s
interaction with the Apostle Peter in Matthew 16. In verses 13-19, Jesus is asking the disciples about His
identity. In the course of the
discussion, Peter declares Jesus as the Christ, God’s Son. Jesus affirms Peter and declares that
He will build His church upon Peter, the rock. Jesus embellishes this promise by promising Peter the keys
of the kingdom of heaven, with commensurate authority. In the very next section, verses 21-23,
Jesus again initiates conversation, this time about His upcoming death. Peter rebukes Him, and Jesus, in turn,
rebukes Peter and calls him Satan.
If ever there was an example of failure, this is it! Remarkably, though, there is no
indication that Jesus valued Peter any less as a result of his “failure.” He didn’t express regret at planning to
build His church upon Peter, and he didn’t retract His promise to give Peter
the keys of the kingdom.
The second incident—Peter’s “failure”—is every bit as
important as Peter’s declaration of faith. Peter needs to have his human perspective corrected, but his
value, his worth to God, is not about his performance; it is about his
faith. As he allows Jesus to mold
and teach him, he becomes equipped to fulfill God’s glorious purposes for
him. Peter does not need to earn
his place nor prove his worth; neither does he need fear failure.
I would suggest that we could benefit from a paradigm
shift. Rather than thinking in
terms of success and failure, we could focus on inviting God to do His work in
us, through us, and among us. Our
value would not be tied to our performance, and we would be free to take
risks. Failure would no longer be
a threat, and we would be able to deeply engage in one another’s lives without
the stress and pressure of the Compare and Compete game.
