What If I Don’t Succeed? (Fear of Failure)

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| Getting Motivated series |

Inadequacy vs. Fear of Failure

In our struggle for motivation, a lot of things can stand in our way. Not least of which is fear, particularly the fear of failure. We all feel it, and to be honest, it’s a fairly rational fear. The reality of this world is that even if we try our hardest, even if we are diligent and thoughtful, failure may still find us. This is because of a very simple truth, so many things are outside of our control, even important things. We can do everything right with regards to the inputs (our efforts) and still find that the outputs (the results) are nevertheless lacking.

In this series on Getting Motivated, we talked last time about how to overcome feelings of inadequacy that can hold us back, gaining insight from the Parable of the Talents. If I could characterize the difference between feelings of inadequacy and a fear of failure it would be with a similar description: When we feel inadequate, we feel we’re not able to provide the needed inputs; when we feel a fear of failure, we fear that even with the proper inputs we still won’t achieve the output/results we want. Whereas the servant with two talents taught us how to respond to feelings of inadequacy last time, I saw answers to our struggle against the fear of failure in the story of the servant with just one talent.

The Servant with Only One Talent

In the Parable of the Talents, the master of the house gave talents to his servants based on their ability before going on a journey. To one he gave five, to another two, and to the third he gave just one talent. The first two servants worked hard with what they were entrusted, trading with them to make a return. The third servant, however, didn’t follow their example but “went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money”. But… Why?

Why did he do this? He explains his reasoning when he’s asked to give an account for what was entrusted to him:

“Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.”
(Matthew 25:24-25, emphasis added)

Notice how he said, “so I was afraid”. In a way, what he’s describing here is a fear of failure. More particularly, because this statement follows his description of the master’s standards, he was afraid that he would fail against those standards. His account of the master’s standards does sound quite overwhelming.

What if God Doesn’t Do His Part?

Clearly in this parable, the master represents God. So, the servant with one talent was describing his understanding of God’s standards by saying that He was “a hard man, reaping where [He] did not sow, and gathering where [He] scattered no seed.” In saying that He reaped where He did not sow, the first servant describes an agriculture equivalent to what we started with in this post. He’s essentially saying: “God you are expecting to find success (output/harvest) but you didn’t do your part to make that possible (input/sowing).”

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that this is exactly how I’ve felt after facing failure. I felt like I did my part but so many important things were out of my control (similar to what we talked about at the beginning). Like a “good Christian” I left those in God’s hands. However, when things didn’t “succeed” like I expected/wanted, it felt like God hadn’t done His part. Once you dig past the veneer of our Christianese, I think a lot of us can hear our own thoughts in what this servant said. It’s easy to feel that God holds us responsible for things that are outside our control, but He doesn’t help us with them. The truth though is that neither of these are true.

Let’s evaluate it this way: let’s put the words of the third servant to the test. Was he right about the master (God) character? Was he right about what the master (God) expected of him? Let’s see if the master in this parable really did “reap where he didn’t sow”.

What Is Our Part? What Is God’s Part?

Let’s start with the reaping part. When the master returned, did he reap/gather the talents he’d given to his servants? Nope. A little later, he refers to the first servant as “him who has the ten talents”. In other words, not only did the master let this servant keep/manage the five talents he had earned, but he also didn’t even gather the original five talents.

What about the sowing part? Were the servants asked to do this investing with their own talents? Nope. At the start of the parable, the master provide the talents to his servants. In other words, similar to what 2 Corinthians 9:10 says, God provided the seed to be sown. In the strictest sense, I suppose, the master provided the seed for sowing but hadn’t actually done the sowing. Why? Because that was what he was asking the servants (us) to do. He’s given us a purpose by asking us to be part of his plan.

Let me summarize what this tells us about God’s part and our part. God first entrusts us with the seed (talents) that he wants sown (invested) like the money/skills/time we have, the gospel/revelations/messages he shows us, or the family/neighbors/people in our lives. Then He gives us a mission and a purpose. He asks us to go to work, investing/sowing these things by following the example Christ set for us.

But what about the results? What if our investments fail? What if our neighbor declines the invitation? God has provided the seed, we have sown it, we have cared for it and watered it, but are we responsible for making it grow? Thankfully, no. God not only provides the seed, but He also provides the growth:

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
(1 Corinthians 3:6)

How Does God Define Success?

What this tells us is somewhat simple: We are not responsible for the outcome. Now we do have a part to play; we have been given a purpose and mission. We are still responsible for our part, to invest, to plant and water what He has entrusted to us. We get to do the fun part that challenges us to work hard and be creative, and we get to leave the fear of failure with Him because it’s His part to make our efforts bring success. (For more on this, see our post about The Work and the Worry.)

However, if we aren’t evaluated by the results, what are we evaluated against? What does our part look like? In other words, like we discussed last week, if God doesn’t look at our “success” the same way we do (by the results), how does God define success? Next time I’m excited to share the illustration God showed me to answer this question out of the same passage in 1 Corinthians 3 that we just saw. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out as we wrap up this series by learning how God defines success.