Success is emphatically not your primary identity.
“Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.” -Robert T. Kiyosaki
Something changed about a year into my process of planting a church in New York. Initially, I was motivated by big dreams of reaching people with the gospel, building a strong church, planting new churches, and discipling the next generation of New Yorkers. And at first, it seemed that my dreams were coming true! I had made great connections with some amazing church planting networks. I had some incredible mentors. I was literally speaking to strangers every day about the gospel. Within a few months, we started holding Bible Studies in my apartment, and although we were a pretty tiny group, we existed!
However, throughout the excitement of those early days, there were also incredible stressors. No matter what I was doing, in the back of my mind, the words “self-sustaining” echoed loudly. I knew I had five years of outside funding and support for the church before we would have to have enough people and enough funding to take care of ourselves. With each day that passed, the pressure mounted. On top of this, I was keenly aware of how much financial sacrifice was being made by my denomination, other churches, and generous individuals. I felt I owed it to them to flourish.
And that’s when things changed. Instead of being motivated by God’s guidance and care (trusting that he was the Lord of his church), I began to be primarily motivated by a fear of failure (and to subtly believe that I was the Lord of my church). Though I confessed salvation by grace alone on account of faith alone in Christ alone, functionally, I didn’t live like it. It’s clear now, looking back, that my fear of failure stemmed from an unwillingness to really believe that Christ was truly all-sufficient. In my mind, I was convinced that if I didn’t succeed, I would become a laughing stock or a cautionary tale for future church planters. Why, if Christ was really sufficient, should I be so bogged down with other people’s opinion of me? And yet, there I was, thinking about it all the time. More and more consumed by my fear, the work of planting got harder and harder. Sure, there were moments of great joy, like the night we launched our church’s worship service in an actual church building or when we would see a new person come to faith. But then the next day would come, and I would be reminded again that we weren’t growing fast enough or bringing in enough money for “self-sustainability.” Week after week, Sunday after Sunday, I worked harder and harder to prove I could do it to everyone (note the problem: “I could do it,” not God could do it). Eventually, our church entered our fifth year of ministry, and then Covid happened. It was clear, barring a miracle, that we would not be able to make it. In November 2020, we shut our doors, and I braced for what I would hear from church leaders, friends, and mentors.
Though I was initially tempted to hide, people continually reached out to me with words of assurance and hope.
But what I heard was not “you’re a failure” or “you’re a loser”. No, to my great surprise, what I heard was nothing but encouragement and sympathy. Though I was initially tempted to hide, people continually reached out to me with words of assurance and hope.
Looking back nearly four years later, it’s so obvious to me that (like so many other fears in life) my fear of failure was a massive energy drain that was unnecessary and, frankly, idolatrous. And this is true for you as well. The fact is, we all fail in big and small ways all the time. We continually fail to live as righteously as we should. We fall into temptation constantly. We don’t love God with everything we have, nor love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We fall in love only to break up and hurt one another. We try to be the best at our various vocations only to realize that we’re kind of mediocre in the big scheme of things. Yes, we fail in big and small ways all the time. The weight of all this can crush you if “success” (however you define it) becomes your primary identity.
But here’s the good news: Success is emphatically not your primary identity. Your primary identity is found in what God says of you. And what he says of you is that you are his child. What he says of you is that he loves you so much that he would bleed, suffer, and die for you. What he says of you is that on account of the finished work of Christ, you are not just forgiven but completely and totally righteous in his sight. What he says of you is that you are truly free. That is who you are no matter how you may fail throughout your life. And this fact has the power to change everything.
Rather than working in your various vocations from the fear of not being enough, as a renewed saint, you now have the freedom to work hard, not primarily for success’ sake, but for your neighbor’s sake. You can even laugh at the prospect of failure because you know that fundamentally, you will not be judged on the last day by your successes but by Christ’s success for you. If you find yourself reading this, overburdened by fear of failure like I was, please hear the words of our Savior: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” He will not quench the smoldering wick nor crush the bruised reed. In fact, he has restored them both. He has restored you so that you might see that failure is not a thing to be feared and often can be a gift to receive. It turns out that it is most often through our failures that we see his faithful work in us and our continual need for him most clearly.
