It’s a couple of weeks into the New Year. If you’re like “most people” you made a bunch of resolutions leading into 2012, but you’re probably just hanging on by a thread by now. It’s getting harder by the day to stick with those goals you had.
If you’re like me, though, you didn’t make any resolutions. You might have said, That’s just a silly tradition, or I’m already doing pretty well and don’t really need to worry about changing anything.
But if you were really honest with yourself—like I’m trying to be in this post—you might admit the real reason you didn’t make resolutions is that you’re truly afraid you won’t achieve them. It’s an old foe rearing its ugly head again: fear of failure.
No one likes to fail, but everyone does. It’s a part of life on this earth as fallen human beings. We will likely set goals for our work, school, family, friends, church, and maybe other types of leaders. We may try as hard as we can 100% of the time (something no one actually does), but the reality is we will still sometimes fall short.
But just because you don’t succeed at everything you try, doesn’t make you a bad person . . . . you’re just normal.
Thankfully, Christ followers can remember that God knows we can’t succeed at everything, and he doesn’t expect us to be flawless. He steps into our messiness and failure and offers radical love and grace: “This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins” (Common English Bible, 1 John 4:10).
It’s not dependent on our ability to do good from the get-go. God just is love.
So what does that have to do with fear? Well, even though failing isn’t fun, it is not something to be feared. The problem with fearing failure is it paralyzes us. We’re so afraid to mess up that we don’t try to accomplish anything; we don’t set any goals.
I didn’t want to think of a New Year resolution for 2012 because I was afraid of the guilt that comes with letting it go by the wayside. But if I don’t set goals, how am I supposed to get any better as a friend, brother, student, intern, or disciple of Christ?
I’m not sure if you believe in all the spiritual stuff you might have heard in churches before (and that’s okay), but I think there really is a loving God and there really is a Devil who is doing all he can to hinder the good God wants to do in the world. And right now, I think that I’m right where the enemy wants me—paralyzed by fear and complacent in my mediocrity.
Yet one biblical author reminds us again that God’s love is bigger than anything we’re afraid of. He writes, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect [or mature] in love. We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:18-19).
So I’m not exactly sure what my resolution is for 2012. I do know it all starts with recognizing my own failures and coming before God to receive the unconditional, perfect love that sets me free so that I can grow into maturity and completeness and share some of that love with the world . . . . Maybe that’s a start.
What about you? What goals are you afraid to set? How does God’s love play into it?
Guillermo is currently a worship intern at The Bridge (Hummelstown, PA) and a senior at Messiah College studying Christian Ministries. See the rest of his bio under the Current Interns tab.