Replace the word “fail” with the word “live.”
When I fear failure, when regret pulls at me, when I close off because I don’t want to be hurt, when I play it safe instead of stepping forward…
I am really naming something deeper.
When I look at the surface explanation, what’s truly being named is the fear of life itself. Because life inevitably includes risk, uncertainty, disappointment, and pain.
Scripture bears witness to this. It is the story of mankind.
So I’ve been taking out the word fail and replacing it with the word live.
“I’m afraid to fail” becomes “I’m afraid to live.”
I don’t ever want to be afraid to live. No way.
That shift is enough to stop me in my tracks. It tells me what I already know. Life is never lived from the safety of avoidance.
To live is to be touched by failure. To live is to be stretched, to stumble, to rise again.
Failure has never been the end of my story. More often, it is the beginning.
Failure is a texture of being alive.
Failure is the shape of a path I can only see once I’ve walked it.
So the question is never how to avoid failure. The question is how deeply am I willing to live.
This doesn’t mean I’m not afraid. I have fears and many insecurities, especially in the unknown. But in the name of Jesus, to live is to die to myself, so that I may rise to new life in Him.
I’m trying! In all the things I do.