At Least I Would Have Tried….
We got up early Wednesday morning ready to begin our time here at our PreDeparture Orientation for Christar. With a delicious breakfast already down, coffee in our mugs, and fellow missionaries surrounding us, we had our first seminar of the day with Christar’s president. A veteran missionary, he stood before us to challenge and encourage us for the next step in our journey. When he said this, he got my attention:
“It’s okay to fail. Failure is not the worst thing that could happen.”
This is interesting, I thought.
“It is better to step out in faith trusting God than to never try at all,” he went on.
What a profound thing for the president to tell aspiring missionaries. What a profound thing for God to tell me….
To be honest with you, I don’t want to fail. In anything. It’s just not comfortable, lovely, and doesn’t seem right. In thinking about telling the Japanese about Christ, I want more than anything to be effective and see people’s lives changed by God. The concept of failure being okay is a totally foreign thing to me. It’s scary to even think about because it so goes against who I am as a person, American, and “good” Christian. For so long it has been ingrained in me that to fail at anything is awful. But here we were yesterday, sitting before the president of our organization, being told that it was okay.
In thinking more about this and about the God I have committed my life to, I have to consider the fact that He is bigger than anything I aspire to do for Him. He can use a failure of mine just as much as a success. Probably the bigger issue is if I am willing to fail. Willing to try something new that might not work, to take a risk, or to pick myself up after having failed. My response to my failure is probably what is more important than the failure itself.
At least I would have tried…. Stepped out in faith, and tried.
Pray for us this week as we enjoy Pre-Departure Orientation and all we are learning. Pray that we will learn all that God has for us as we prepare for Japan. Pray also that we would soon receive our Certificate of Eligibility, which we need in order to get our visas.