Proud To Say, "I'm a Failure"

                I am only 21 years old, but I think about what my kids will be like someday and I think about the people I want them to be. I think that’s normal. In no way do I believe I am ready for kids or anything like that and I obviously do not want to have kids for another like 6-9 years or more; but, these are just some things that I think about. I also really do think it’s worth placing on your mind. Honestly, when I think about it I want my kids to have so many qualities that I don’t even have myself, or qualities I’m not even good at putting into practice! I started wondering if that was hypocritical of me. It seemed to me that if I wanted my kids to achieve goals that I haven’t even achieved myself then that was unfair and it was almost as if I was setting them up for failure. To me it seemed as though I would be projecting the expectations God has for me onto my kids; I was projecting my shortcomings onto them and expecting them to do better than I ever could. I was then reminded that I think everyone wants the best for their kids. Wanting the best for your kids isn’t wrong but part of wanting the best for them includes wanting the best for yourself first! Those shortcomings that I want to vicariously achieve through my future children might just be shortcomings I was too scared to try to achieve myself! If I chase my dreams, goals, and plans right now then I won’t feel the need to pressure my kids to chase them for me later. You owe it to your future kids to work on being the best version of yourself and you owe it to you future kids to chase the dreams you have in your heart. The person I want my kids to be starts with the type of person I want to be. The person who I am forming myself into now is probably the person I will be nine years from now, or at least a fraction of a future me! Now is the time in my life where I can start digging in the soil and planting seeds for my kids REALLY deep in the ground. Right now I can start forming strong roots for my kids and it starts with the type of person I decide to become today.

Proverbs 16:9 it says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” It’s good for us to make plans, have dreams, set goals, and aspire to be something; ultimately, God determines all of the outcomes but we should still think about these things. We are given the opportunity from God to explore all of these goals so that we can exercise out intelligence, discernment, and creativity. We can form our plans to try and become closer to God, we can try to align our hearts with His, and then if our plans don’t come to pass we can lean on God for comfort and guidance. I believe we are called to think about our future and examine goals for our lives because it forces us to think of ways we can be in the center of God’s will.

I think sometimes people want to live in the now and not think about the future. I know I am guilty of this to an extreme degree because the future really scares me. But I also realized the biggest part of the future that scares me is this:

What if I fail? What if I can’t reach my dreams or any of my goals? What if I make a fool out of myself? What if everyone sees me fall flat on my face? What if I am embarrassed because I simply can’t do what I have set out to do? What if I do achieve the dreams I have and people think those dreams are stupid?

That’s true, all of that is a reality, and all of that could happen. We seem to spend about 95% of our lives worrying about the worst possible outcomes of these scenarios we have set up in our minds! I haven’t even put many of these goals into action and I am already worried of screwing them up.

 I tend to feel this constant pressure to succeed; and if I don’t, then I feel as though my world will be over. I think to myself that it’s better to not try, not fail, and stay safe; rather than try my hardest and then realize that my hardest was not enough. But even if I don’t try at these things, that’s a failure in itself; the lack thereof or absence of effort to pursue a goal is a failure in itself. I have trapped myself in this lose-lose situation in my mind. I tend to put all of this weight on myself and I have told myself that if I don’t succeed at something then I have wasted my time or it was all for nothing! Realistically though, that isn’t true at all! Steven Furtick once said this and till this day I find it to be one of the best quotes I have ever heard in my life,

“Don’t let the way you thought life would play out keep you from experiencing the joy of entering into the deepest sorrow and finding that God is there with you in it all.”

If I do set out to achieve these goals and I do fail then I can experience the great joy Steven was talking about. In my own mind, whether I realize it or not, I have made these goals some type of idol in my life by saying, “If I don’t succeed then these goals were a waste of my time.” Saying that is the equivalent of saying, “I am finding my worth in the success of this goal.” The truth is that God is no more with you in your successes than He is in your failures! Therefore when you have a day at your job when you have completely screwed things up God is still closer than your own breath. And when you have a day at work when everything went your way, our God remains the same and he is still right there with you. Perhaps when we fail at something we begin to doubt God and by doing that we are distancing ourselves from Him and not the other way around. Perhaps we are the one building up walls to keep ourselves from God. I have heard that the lies you believe will determine the future you experience; therefore, if we tell ourselves God isn’t there in our failures that’s what it’s going to feel like! It’s almost as if we believe our failures should be punished and so we tell ourselves that when we fail God is disappointed with us. Here’s the kicker though, God knew you were going to fail at whatever you might have just failed at before you even set out to do it or before you were even born. Therefore, it isn’t so much of a disappointment to Him because God is looking at you thinking, “Well…I saw that one coming!” I was trying to think of a situation in life that seemed similar to how God reacts to our failures. Because I was born in 1993 a Disney Channel metaphor seemed accurate. How many people remember the Lizzie McGuire episode when she dates the paper boy, Ronnie? If you watched Lizzie McGuire at all you know that her best friend Gordo was insanely in love with Lizzie from the start. So of course Lizzie starts dating Ronnie and Gordo doesn’t protest the relationship in any way, shape, or form but we all know Gordo did not think the relationship was a good idea. Gordo knew all along that Ronnie wasn’t going to be the one. But then when Lizzie gets dumped by Ronnie, Gordo is the one sitting by her side in the library encouraging her that everything is going to be okay. Gordo sort of knew all along that Lizzie was going to get hurt somehow and he saw it coming. But since Gordo is one of the best guys of all time he doesn’t say, “Called it!” Instead he comforts Lizzie in her failure, in her failed relationship. God allows us to fail at things sometimes and he doesn’t jump in and send any angels down to stop us from making mistakes (even though we all know He could do that). Instead, God permits our mistakes and allows our failures to occur as He waits to comfort us when everything blows up in our faces.

Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt like you were smack-dab in the center of God’s will and you were embarking on an opportunity He set out for you and all the sudden the doors of opportunity closed, or everything just plummeted for destruction? In those times I have found it so easy to think, “Oh I must have been wrong and God didn’t want me to go down that path, He must not want that for me.”  Maybe that isn’t true. Think about when God called Peter to come walk to him over the water. Do you think God didn’t know that Peter was going to start falling into the waves? God knew! God knew Peter was going to eventually fail and yet God still asked Peter to step out in faith and to walk across the water. God wanted Peter to fail because God wanted Peter to learn. Peter probably learned that God will reach out His hand when the waves get higher, that faith should not only be strong enough to take the first steps but faith should also be constant regardless of circumstances, and maybe Peter learned that falling on your face in front of everyone else who is in the boat is still more noble than staying in the boat. I’ve been staying in the boat for so long. Earlier I said I was scared of failing and that’s probably why so many of the other people stayed in the boat. Imagine you have kids and they have these great big dreams, would you want them to stay in the boat instead of taking the risk of pursuing those dreams? Every parent seems to believe their child can walk on water! Every parent wants to see their kid get out of the boat and try!

To be honest I wanted to write this entire thing on something entirely different. I wanted to write about working on being a better person because I think if I practice being a better person now then I can be a better example for my children later. That’s what I wanted to write about and that is why the beginning of this talks about parenting. I’m not sure when but somewhere along the lines of that idea my writing just shifted. The fear of failure has just been so prevalent in my life and so it’s difficult for me not to write about it. I think sometimes maybe God uses our fears like that. When you think about it, I failed to write what I intended to write about and I’m sure God will use that failure in itself! God uses our failures all the time. I have always said that a mistake is only a mistake if you make it more than once. If we screw up and don’t learn our lesson then what was the point of screwing up! I believe one of the most important things we can do in life is pass along our wisdom to others in whatever ways we can. God calls us to sharpen one another and sharing our fears and failures is definitely part of that. I’m positive I’m not alone in being terrified of the future but I’m also pretty sure someone else feels like they are alone because they’re scared of the future too.  If we can’t allow God to use our failures in that’s when our failed attempts become a waste of time.  If the world can take all of these things God meant for good and distort them into sinful acts then of course God can take the things that were meant to limit us and turn them into our biggest strengths.