Thought for the Day 30/08/21 - Fear of failure

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Studiocam

Bank Holidays are always a bonus ... if you get them ... but sometimes they do look a bit like just kicking the can down the road. 

Bank holiday Monday gets followed by 'not-a-Bank-Holiday Tuesday' and there's always the threat of what would have needed to be faced on Monday now piled up against Tuesday's regular work to be gone back to.

And what is it we dread about that? Why is facing work a thing of dread to so many? At root it seems very much to be the fear we won't be able to face up to it's challenges without falling short or failing in some way we're expected NOT to.

Fear of failure

 According to Psychology Today

"Fear of failure is the intense worry you experience when you imagine all the horrible things that could happen if you failed to achieve a goal. 

The intense worry increases the odds of holding back or giving up. 

Being successful relies to a large extent on your ability to leverage fear."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/smashing-the-brainblocks/201801/how-conquer-fear-failure

Psychologists seem to 'psychologise' it by giving it a name (atichyphobia) and presenting us with techniques to 'cure' it .. as if it is a sickness.

Well, no doubt when it gets out of hand there is a case to be made for treatment, but the simple existence of this fear of failure is not really abnormal at all ... it comes with the line of country - it's very arguably just part of being human.

Being human

Failure, it's experience, memory and anticipation is simply part of being human rather than Divine, and what it does is remind us of our realities and our dependence of the One Who lies above and beyond us. He is not like this Himself, and sees His role as to stand by us, strengthen us and assist us in facing, dealing with and overcoming our capacity to fail ... day by day and a day at a time.

The resources to cope

In our Verse for the Day we read 

"As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." 

Isaiah 55:10-11

Now, you may well want to say: 'Well that's all very well for HIM, but how does God's non-failure do anything for me?'

The Point

Psychology will offer you ways to re-envisage the reality you're facing in such a way as to minimise it's reality, whereas the God Who speaks in His Word may correct your perceptions of that reality (which may or may not be more comforting!), but then strengthens you as you trust in the Word of the One Who speaks to enable you to face not to flee that reality.

So Isaiah 55 goes on to speak of the fruit of that:

"You will go out in joy

    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
    will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
    will clap their hands."

Isaiah 55:11

Now, OK, that's a bit of a poetic description of how trusting in the God Who does not fail and living in reliance on Him and His Word might affect how you will walk into the office on Bank Holiday Tuesday (and that's probably not the sort of entrance you'll want to make either!) 

But you get the point?

The Takeaway

Living through our failures trusting in the non-failing God and leaning on the wisdom in His Word puts our fear of failure in a whole different perspective, and equips us to be more fully human than we were before as we grow into the re-made model of humanity God is creating in all of us who live in this way.
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