Yesterday my heart was heavy, and I was in dialogue with my massage therapist. She made the comment, “Failure is a beautiful thing”. It resonated with my soul.
Our lives are spent trying to avoid failure, hide failure, minimize failure, and keep from failure at all costs. But how do we learn anything of significance without failure? We fear failure because it strikes at the core of our self-image. We spend our lives trying to secure a good self-image through performance. We are special, we are high speed, low drag. We are elite. It goes on and on.
Each day in my dialogue with God, I ask Him to help me believe that my value to Him resides in my relationship with Him as His son and not in my performance for Him.
I am always struck in John when Jesus is baptized and comes out of the water and the heavens part, and the Father leans out and declares, “You are My beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased”. Jesus hadn’t done anything! It was Who He was that mattered to the Father, not His performance. The performance of Jesus would come because of the relationship, not to secure the relationship.
Almost no one in this world (apart from some believers) feels that they are ok apart from their performance. School, military, job, our culture—they all teach acceptance based on performance.
But our God is about grace. When you look at Psalm 113 & 1 Corinthians 1, you can see the people that God picks for His team. The poor, needy, barren, foolish, weak, base, and despised. A bunch of losers. I am bringing up the back of that pack. He chooses these so that He will receive the glory.
I am old enough now to know that I am never going to “get it together”. My brokenness will be with me as I stagger into the Kingdom pointing to the marvel and wonder and grace of Jesus! I am free to fail because my Father loves me unconditionally apart from my performance. Blessed is the name of our Lord!
Written by David C.
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