August 11

One of the most debilitating emotions is fear of failure. Those who are stricken by this spiritual malady have negated the Lord’s wonderful assertion in I John 4:18 that “…perfect love casts out fear.” When we allow fear to govern our expectation of ourselves, we have relegated ourselves to accomplishing far less than the Lord in His perfect love intends for us to do and to be.

When we assess our abilities, we must be realistic. We are not all going to be brain surgeons, nor can we all become great artists or musicians or mathematicians or salespeople. We need to know our strengths and know our weaknesses. By assessing them objectively, we are able to know what goals are viable for us to pursue.

Even Jesus said, “I am able to do nothing of Myself; only as I am taught of My Father am I able to work” (John 5:30). Certainly, the One who spoke the universe into being was not negating His ability to do anything He chose to do. Certainly the One who said He could lay down His life and take it up again (John 10:18) could not be thwarted in any task He set for Himself.

No. But He did restrict Himself on what He was able to do in that He oriented all that He did around the will of His Father. We, when we have assessed our gifts from the Father, will be able to use those gifts to glorify His name! We need not fear failure when we are doing all that our hand finds to do, “with all our strength” (Ecclesiastes 9:10) as our Father gifted us to do.