Striving to...FAIL!?

 What I want most of all is...UTTER FAILURE?! Well, yes, I believe so.

"For most of us, learning to do anything requires the willingness to fail. An unwillingness to fail can be a significant barrier to learning. Gifted students are seldom limited by intellect; what undoes them most often is fear of failure. Why should it be any surprise that the same is true of faith? Any significant growth in faith will require risk and even failure. Understandably, this is uncomfortable. Especially as we get older, we become used to being successful and in control. Over time our comfort zone shrinks to encompass little more than the things we are good at and endeavors at which we can reasonably expect success. God’s gracious call to us is an invitation to pursue him out of our comfort zones and into a place where failure is a real possibility—perhaps even an inevitability. It’s a call to follow God to places where dependence on him is a necessity. Because he loves us, God invites us into his work in the world. And if we accept, we will face problems so big, situations so complex, suffering so profound, evil so real and palpable that our faith in God will hit its failure point on a regular basis. But to shrink back from this invitation is to accept a lesser, weaker version of faith. To accept this invitation is to discover that the work of justice is significantly about our own discipleship."

I am ordering this book TODAY and reading through it while I watch the YouTube videos that accompany each chapter. I will be praying for others to read this as well...and to take it to heart...to embrace it enough to be willing to get out into the Failure Zone...where we find ourselves closest to God!

You can download the first chapter here: http://www.thejustchurch.com/  and watch a TWO MINUTE intro video.
I love the emphasis on the two prerequisites of stepping out to serve God in hard places: COURAGE & HUMILITY!

---