Failing Upwards

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

You have a fear. A fear of failing. Failing your parents, your siblings, school, relationships (romantic or otherwise), work, life. That fear was instilled in you in a young age and it has a habit of being the driving force for you to pursue perfection in all areas of your life. You make yourself anxious when you have little time to reach a deadline for certain work goals, and if you disappoint anyone in the slightest way, you become physically sick.

Anyone else feel this way besides myself sometimes? I'm not sure what it is about this specific fear, but I have seen in myself and others around me that we have the need to need to be perfect; that we can't fail, otherwise we, ourselves, become a failure. We have it in our minds that we can't make mistakes, even though society says it's okay to make mistakes, or in the famous words of Hannah Montana, "Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days" and "Nobody's perfect".

Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we make ourselves sick if we can't be perfect in life?

Perhaps it's because you lived in a household where you had to strive to get all A's in school in order to get a scholarship to pay for your education. Perhaps you have an innate sense of needing to please everyone. Perhaps your heart was broken and you think it's your fault, so you try everything to be the perfect girlfriend or boyfriend in your next relationship. Or maybe you have to have a structured routine in your life each day, and if one part of your day gets out of place, then you don't really know what to do with yourself.

I think the best answer to why we fear failure is down to one simple statement: we are doing everything of our own accord, and we are not trusting in the One that holds every part of our lives in His hands. We fear failing because we don't want to mess up our own perfect plan for our life. We fear failing because we need to feel worth in our life from others instead of God, Himself, whose opinion is the only one that truly matters. Yet, despite our failings, He still sees us as righteous and holy. "And to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:24

But why should we fear failing? It's a part of life and it's what makes us who we are. It's what points us to the true calling that God has for us in life. And, no matter what, it's inevitable, no matter how hard you try to be perfect. We can always strive for perfection, but we should look for it in ways of how to be Christ-like. How to love others, how to fight off temptation, how to have a relationship with our heavenly Father. Colossians 3:12 says this, "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience." These are the attributes that really matter! God doesn't care if you make a mistake at work! Yes, He wants us to do our best in everything we do, but making mistakes is how we learn. It's how we become better versions of ourselves, because we learn what works for us and, then, what doesn't.

Failing doesn't have to be the end all, be all. It can lift us up if we allow it to. Instead of looking at failing as though we are failures, look at it as God molding us. "But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; we are all the work of Your hand." Isaiah 64:8. We are all the work of His hand, meaning He is molding each and every one of us into the person He wants us to be, if we put our trust and life in His hands.

God is the perfect potter. He takes His time to mold us into something beautiful, but that doesn't mean we won't go through fire. Fire is what firms the clay and makes the jar complete and beautiful. We go through fires every day and, although we feel as though we can't make it through the heat, we always will.

I truly believe that failing also allows us to figure out what God calls us in our lives. Think about it. How many times do people go through multiple jobs before finding the one job you know you'll love for the rest of your life? And how many of you would say you didn't learn something from each job you had? Perhaps you didn't fail at your previous jobs, but you certainly found out what didn't work for you. Some may think that quitting or getting fired from a job is failing in and of itself because you "couldn't make it work", but it's God's way of showing you that He has a new step in your life for you and directing you to a new job that will grow you.

Failing, when you think about it, is absolutely beautiful. If we didn't "fail" at certain relationships, we would never have learned how to become a better person, nor have found the one that God intended us for. If we didn't "fail" some of our tests in school, we wouldn't have learned how to retain the knowledge of the questions we missed and apply it to the next test to do better. If we didn't "fail" at work, we would never have found multiple solutions of how to fix a problem. Failing allows us to grow, and although a lot of people may see it as a setback, I choose to see it as moving onward and upwards.

So don't be afraid to fail. Allow these failures to mold you into a better person and to share your failures as a testimony instead of being ashamed of them. You never know who would benefit from hearing about your "failures". And always remember to allow God to continue to put you through the fire, because, in the end, you will come out even more beautiful than you were before the flames.

Image by: @darkhorsephotographysa