Failure Possibilities?

by Jean

"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" was a question posed by Robert Schuller and similar questions have shown up on little posters around the Internet. Recently I've been having some second thoughts about applying that question to my life. The question ties into Philippians 4:13 that says ,"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (NKJ) and Proverbs 16:3, "Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed. "(Amplified Bible) If Christ is going to give us the strength and wisdom to do all things, then should we know we won't fail if we are following his direction?

Generally, I tend to head into whatever tasks I believe God is directing me to with maybe too much of a "can not fail" attitude - sort of like Peter when he stepped out of the boat to walk to Jesus on the water. (Matthew 14:25-29)

I will see something that I think will be good for someone, or a group of people, and I can take some steps to make it happen. There are usually some nagging doubts about parts of what will happen if I start the ball rolling, but I pray and go ahead anyway. The vast majority of the time everything works out well in the end, especially when the goal I envisioned to start with did not involve my glorification. Most of the anxiousness comes up once I am in the middle of the project. That's when all my inabilities become clear and the possibility of failure looms large - as when Peter suddenly noticed the storm around him once he was standing on the water. (Matthew 14:30)

For instance, for the school Christmas program for this year, I really wanted to give

Caleb the chance to be the main angel that appeared to the shepherds and to choreograph a dance for himself, and then for the rest of the angels coming on to join him. Caleb enjoys expressive dancing ,is good at it, and remembers dance moves well. Also, Piewon has been an enthusiastic break-dancer in past school shows. I thought he could lead some kind of breakdance with the shepherds. I am not any kind of dancer, though, so I knew I would have to have help to have this idea work.

School this year has been more work than ever, so I had no time to work on any Christmas program. Two and a half weeks before the show was to happen our office manager wanted to know if I had any Christmas program ideas. I told the Thai teachers that I had a little bit of an idea, but I would need some help. Their help was to do something with the 1st -4th graders and let me work out something with the 5th and 6th graders. Caleb was willing to lead the angel part and Piewon was sort of willing to lead the breakdancing part. That left me to work with a third group to tie up the little story about what the shepherds did. The first couple of days the third group and the shepherds' parts weren't going well. I found out they need words in their songs in order to make up dances to them. They don't count beats, so they need the words to know when to do what.

Caleb's group was going great! Then they said they wanted to dance to another song besides the ones I gave them. That turned out to be the key. That song was a good song to finish with instead of the one I was trying to use. We reformed our groups a little, and Caleb and his group worked out that other song too, while I went to help the shepherds. Piewon and I found a better song to use for them and then the rest came together. The only hang up was when a shoe of one of the shepherds flew up when he did some sort of flip and stayed in the green cloth hanging over the stage for decoration.

There are still other things I am in the middle of that feel like they are one step or a few weeks away from disaster: finding new English curriculum for next year and preparing it for all the grades, getting the 1st -3rd grade students to finish their pen pal letters and Christmas cards, making quizzes and worksheets for the areas the students need work on. It seems like I am doing the things I would do if I knew I could not fail. The thing is, I could fail, and sometimes I do. Someone told me getting into things like this is a matter of judgment (or misjudgment?). Still I don't think I should sit down and do something like count all the hours it could take to do what I am thinking of and how many hours I have available. That would stop me from doing just about everything I am doing. Instead, I think the judgment should come from time spent in prayer asking for wisdom and meditating on the Scriptures to consider how the hoped for result would conform to them. After all, Jesus criticized Peter not for getting out of the boat (he wouldn't if he had calculated his ability to walk on water in a storm first), but for becoming frightened and doubting after he was out doing it. (Matthew 14:31)

The challenge for me then is to keep going without becoming anxious. There is plenty of scripture about that! One reference is Philippians 4:6,7 "Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.

7 And God’s peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace], which transcends all understanding, shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." (Amplified Bible)