Were you ever successful on your first attempt to do something tricky? If you’re fortunate enough to say ‘yes,’ I wouldn’t get used to that being the norm.
After college I worked for a construction company for about a year and a half before leaving for the Air Force. During the summers we started at 6:30 or 7 in the morning so we could escape some of the heat of the late afternoon. Getting off work at 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon meant there was still plenty of time to get to the pool before it closed.
This was the same pool where I had spent a few summers lifeguarding. When I worked at the pools, I got the chance to watch people do some pretty cool things off the diving boards. I never really had the chance to try it out though, because I was either working or hurrying to get something done so I could move on to the next thing.
I’m not really sure what triggered it, but one day after work when I was at the pool, I decided that I wanted to try a “one and a half” off the diving board. I’m not sure if there’s a better name than that for it, but if you do a flip off the diving board and land in the water feet first, that’s “one.” A one and a half is when you do a flip, but keep rotating another half revolution and enter the water hands/headfirst in a dive.
You have to understand that back then I had a higher tolerance for pain. Working in construction means you’re constantly dealing with bruises, knicks, bumps, drops, even a few slams here and there. For whatever reason, on that day, I was willing to accept some pain in order to perform a one and a half.
Failure after failure ensued. I’m on the tall side, so it took me a bit to figure out how to deal with under-rotation. Rotating 360 degrees is good, and rotating the desired 540 degrees is good, but when you’re somewhere in between those two, it’s ugly and painful (especially when you’re spinning fast and your face is the first thing to hit the water). Some of the flops forced my eyes open underwater, some of them wrenched my neck back, and some of them just stung when I hit the water the wrong way.
I was finally able to do it. The secret was twofold: you had to tuck in your legs almost like you’re doing a cannonball, and you had to spin full speed in order to get the full rotation. It was the most bizarre feeling to be spinning so fast that your face starts warping and you had to use your arms to pull your knees close to your chest or they’d fly away from it. Weird as it was, it was the only way to make it work.
I don’t think I’ve ever done another one and a half since that day. I just wanted to figure it out for myself and be able to say that I had done it. Here’s the important takeaway from this little story: in order to reach my goal, I had to be willing to fail. Boy, did I fail. And I didn’t just fail once, I failed MANY times (sometimes in an epic way). In the end, I failed more times than I was successful, but the eventual success somehow made the failures seem less important.
Some of you are afraid of failure. Why? Maybe you’re afraid of someone seeing you miss the mark. Maybe you think that it will result in people labeling you as someone with poor judgment. It might be because you’re afraid of what will happen if you succeed. Whether it’s ego, fear, embarrassment, whatever it is, ask yourself if the reason you don’t try is because of something that’s only in your head.
I think this is a recurring theme in this blog: in your Christian life, God will challenge you to do things that you think you’re going to fail at. That’s fine. It’s okay to fear failure. Don’t miss the next part, though. Fearing the possibility of failure is not a valid excuse for not trying. If God hands you an assignment that takes the wind out of your sails, I can guarantee the little voice that starts whispering to you “there’s just no way” is not a part of God’s team. If someone who’s not on God’s team starts trying to put ideas in your head, do you think you should put any stock in them?
Today I heard someone say “People don’t want to be preached to; they want to be summoned.” They want to be called, invited, to be a part of something. God will summon you to do something big, and He will pick YOU for a specific reason. You may not know why, but it’s part of His master plan. Nobody else on the entire planet has the exact combination of experiences, gifts, talents, and resources that you do. If God’s calling you to be a part of something, don’t let the possibility of failure stop you from getting started. Your obedience can unleash something you never saw coming, and open the door for others to be a part of something bigger than you could have expected.