The Fear of Failure

One of my all-time favorite bands is a rock and roll group from South Carolina called “NEEDTOBREATHE.” “Money & Fame” is one of the songs that they recently debuted from their upcoming album Hard Love. Here are some of the lyrics:

“What do you kids want to know about now? I found the bottom from the top somehow. Money and fame bring a man shame, ain’t no doubt about it.”

Lyrically the song is pretty straightforward. It’s the account of a man who has seen all the success and glory that someone could hope for, but who has lost himself in the pursuit of it all. The song emphasizes the emptiness and meaninglessness of this kind of success, especially when you don’t know who you are anymore by the time you’ve achieved it. The lyrics make it clear that money and fame bring a man shame, but they don’t say much beyond that. As a listener I’m left wondering if failure is a necessary part of success. Do we have to first fall flat on our faces in order to have a righteous perspective regarding success?

Facing the Reality of Failure

I think it’s safe to say that we all either have experienced or will experience failure of some degree in our lives. Since failure is so engrained in the human life, I don’t think that it’s necessary to say that we all must experience a specific moment of complete, devastating failure in order to have the fog cleared from our eyes. Maybe your experience with failure is as colossal as the one depicted by NEEDTOBREATHE’s song, or maybe, to you, failure simply means that you have yet to reach “the top.” Either way, failure is part of who we are as humans.

Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Although society pays less attention to this perspective on failure than it does to social and financial failure, it is no less true that all of humanity has failed morally and righteously before God. If someone was going to be upset about having failed in some way, this is the sort of colossal failure that they should be thinking about, instead of whether or not they’ll make employee of the month or whether or not they’ll wear the right brand of shoes to the first day of school.

Yet, despite humanity’s enormous failure of abandoning God and falling into sin, God nevertheless created a way to make up for every ounce of failure wrought by man, and then some. It is an often cliché verse, but that doesn’t make it any less true: John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

If we have no reason to fear the reality of eternal failure, then why do we fear all of the lesser forms of failure that we encounter in life?

There Is No Reason to Fear Failure

Proverbs 16:9 says, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”

So much of the stress and anxiety surrounding failure comes from thinking that we can control whether or not we fail. We think that if we save enough money, if we work so many extra hours, if we wear all the right clothes and do all the right things, then we will not fail. However, this verse from Proverbs tells us otherwise.

If you believe in Christ, you have no need to live in fear of failure, because you know that He is in control of your life and His plan is greater than anything you could imagine on your own. We can plan and scheme and organize and schedule all we want, but it is the Lord who has the final say. Furthermore, we have no reason to fear God’s control over our lives because we know that He loves us, that He died to save us, and that He is coming back to be with us some day.

The next time you are faced with the fear of failure, try to stop striving for control over the situation. Pray, be candid and share your feelings of fear with God, but don’t forget to rest in the reality that He is in control of everything. Thank God for his provision in your life. Ask Him to reveal what steps you should take next and trust that He will reveal the path before you.

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