Being a success for God appeals to anyone, but there’s not very many willing to be a failure for Him. When we start in ministry, we dream of grandiose achievements — filled to the rafters events. God is a different kind of boss. His metrics of success are very different from the world coming from a social, statistical, and even emotional standpoint. This is why faith in Jesus is significant for a Christian. We easily get lost in the standards of the world.
We must understand that not everyone can play it safe and please God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “… and without faith, it’s impossible to please God.” Living in faith can be messy, and we frequently don’t get to see the results of this faith. Of course, there are times when we do get to see the results, but it is never a guarantee. That is how things go for a Christian. A big question for all of us: are we still willing to obey God by faith in our most uncertain times, even if there are no guarantees we will be able to see the solution?
Never let the fear of failure talk you out of an act of obedience. When you have a guarantee, you don’t have faith. The most compelling reason we don’t step out isn’t that it might hurt our families or finances. Sometimes we fail to respond in worship because we don’t want to be embarrassed. It’s our ego that’s at risk. We have to be careful in things where our ego starts to take over. This is the reason why Jesus assures us that in evangelism, when the fear of rejection usually creeps in, the person is not rejecting us, but is mainly rejecting Christ. In the same way, a person gets to be saved not because of us, but because Jesus has opened that person’s eyes and heart to receive Christ.
“Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me, but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.” – Luke 10:16
Our ego doesn’t matter much to God. He will destroy your ego every chance he gets. Paul perfectly shows us the right attitude to embrace when confronted by our weakness.
“Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So, I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my infirmities, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
We need awareness of our weakness so that he can be our strength. That’s how God’s economy works. So the thing that stands in the way of us stepping out into faith is frequently fear of being embarrassed. It’s the fear of having everybody see your failure. When you’re a leader, it’s even harder. We fear being embarrassed when our friends find out that we are not wealthy or professionally successful.
The call of God is always harder than you thought it was going to be. If someone says, “Well God won’t give you more than you can handle,” that’s not in the Bible. The bible promises you won’t be tempted beyond what you can endure. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
God sometimes puts us in situations where we must rely Him. He stretches us to step away from our security. We live our lives the same for many years, and we do everything the same, and no change takes place. Stepping into our destiny requires stepping away from our security. God sometimes does it this way because he asks us to do more. We are to stop holding onto things and put our faith and trust in him. We keep getting our arms around our finances, job, relationship, and we refuse to let go. Nothing wrong in these things per se, but if we put them over God, then that is something else. Clinging to things like security and saying we are “all in for God” at the same time—it just doesn’t work that way. God is a jealous God. He wants us all to himself and he desires that we let go of everything else.
The challenge is that he always asks us to let go first. That will never be easy. We are so used to having a plan A or a plan B in case the first one doesn’t work. His ways are indeed different, and we must have faith, even if sometimes we have no clue what will happen next or where will be going just like Abraham.
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” – Hebrews 11:8
Sometimes, jumping in faith brings tremendous blessings immediately. But there could be times when hardships come, just like what Paul relates in Hebrews.
“Women received their loved ones back again from death. But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. Some were, jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were, chained in prisons. Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half,[d] and others were, killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated. They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.” – Hebrews 11:35-38
God is calling you and you’ve been thinking too small. The problem is that usually, God thinks of something big. We must not limit God to our concerns, challenges, and difficulties. He is a big God, after all.
