by Ken Costa
Who knows how Jesus might use our failures? Sometimes just the act of failing can help us forge a deeper connection with the world around us. When we dare to reveal the fact that we feel weak, confused, angry, and ashamed, it is then that others can connect with us because they know how to relate to us. In these moments, our common humanity is more effective than any religious talk. Our lives become authentic, affirming, and accessible. Even our moments of failure and disappointment can be how God prepares us for the way ahead.
Take the story of Joseph, found in the book of Genesis. Joseph was the favored son of his father, with dreams of power and glory, when his jealous brothers kidnapped him and sold him into slavery. Later, he became the committed and trusted servant of Potiphar, an official of the Egyptian pharaoh. But when Potiphar’s wife falsely accused Joseph of assault, he was condemned to prison indefinitely.
At this point, Joseph must have considered his life a complete failure. He must have been utterly dejected. But it was from that dark and hopeless prison that God raised Joseph up to become the second most powerful man in all Egypt. There he learned the skills of leadership. It was through the experiences of his fellow prisoners that God showed him how to interpret dreams. And it was because of his relationships there that Joseph came to the attention of the pharaoh as someone who could explain nightmares.
Through Joseph’s failures God prepared him to be the person he was called to be—the man who would save huge swaths of the Middle East from the ravages of famine.
This points to one great truth that I have continuously learned throughout my life: often the long and tortuous route is more fruitful than the quick shortcut. We frequently learn deeper lessons in the byways than on the highways.
Like Joseph, Nelson Mandela was someone who seemed to have utterly failed. Imprisoned for twenty-seven years, he must have thought, sitting in his cell on Robben Island, that he had reached a dead end. Unable to communicate with the outside world, he must have felt his struggle for freedom was a distant memory and no more. The future was bleak.
That cell was the most hidden of byways, but, ultimately, it was the path to his life calling. If he had not been locked up and brutalized through all those years, he would never have become the iconic leader not just of a nation but of the world. It was in those dark cells that he learned the painful truths of forgiveness and reconciliation, which he was able to put into practice once he was released. Because of that grueling experience, he understood forces of institutional evil that corrupted people into following a hideous ideology.
Mandela did not remain hidden. But many of us do. Unlike Mandela, we often do not see the extent of our own fruitfulness. There’s a wonderful quote from Henri Nouwen that reads, “The beauty of life is that it bears fruit long after life itself has come to an end.”5
We see the lasting effects of a fruitful life in the biblical story of Leah, Joseph’s stepmother and Jacob’s first wife. For many years, Jacob worked for his uncle Laban in order to gain the hand of Laban’s beautiful daughter Rachel. After this period of work, however, Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Rachel’s sister, Leah. From that point on, Leah pretty much remained in the shadows. She never knew the extent of her own fruitfulness. She was disliked, dishonored, disappointed, and always referred to in contrast to her sister’s beauty. She was neither respected by her father nor loved by her husband, Jacob, who lusted after her sister. The only reason he slept with her for the first time was because he was inebriated after their wedding party.
But Leah’s one gift, which distinguished her from her sister, was that she was fertile. After she gave birth to her first son, Reuben, she thought, “Now my husband will love me” (Genesis 29:32 ESV). After her second son, Simeon, and her third, Levi, she hoped desperately that her husband would be a companion to her (v. 34). But he was not. Then, she discovered a key that unlocked her life—and it will unlock yours. After having a fourth son, she said, “This time I will praise the LORD” (v. 35). Reuben, Simeon, and Levi would be fathers to three of the great tribes of Israel. But her fourth son, Judah, would be ancestor to David and ultimately Jesus! Leah learned the great truth that only God loves us unconditionally. She failed to win her husband’s love, but submission to God in praise transformed her life.
As J. K. Rowling would ask, whose version of “failure” did Leah measure her life by? In the world’s eyes, she had very little to offer. But God chose her as a mother to the ancient nation of Israel. Thousands of years later, the full effect was seen in the person of Jesus Christ.
At the point of his death, Jesus himself must have seemed like the ultimate failure. All those promises made at his birth. All those miraculous signs and wonders. All that incredible potential, yet here he was, nailed to a tree, breathing his last breath, just a few years into his ministry and well before his thirty-fifth birthday. Most of his followers had abandoned him, and there was no hope for the movement he had started. Except, of course, that his apparent failure was not the last word. With his resurrection and ascension, the greatest movement that has ever been was birthed, touching the lives of billions of people.
The death and resurrection of Jesus show just how powerless fear really is. With God, we don’t know what’s going to happen. We don’t know how he might use our apparent failings for his glory and his works. In the resurrection of Christ even the great, final fear—fear of death—is rendered impotent.
FLIP THE FEAR
In the financial market, the Vix Index, also known as the “Fear Index,” measures the fears of investors. When investors are concerned by future instability and uncertainty, the index goes up. This echoes the fear index in our own lives, which tends to oscillate, often quite sharply.
We need to be as vigilant in our own lives as a trader would be watching the impact of fear on the markets. As we become more fearful of the future, we need to be more active in taking necessary steps to protect ourselves from this fear. God is open 24/7 to swap our fears for favor. But we need to initiate that trade.
Here are five “fear flippers”—tools that will help us turn from fear to faith.
1. LOOK TO JESUS
Jesus encouraged his disciples, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He could not have been clearer. Fear is a powerful impostor, but Jesus has overcome the world that tries to breathe fear into life. And when we come to know in our hearts that we have secure life in Christ and that he loves us and guides us, the world changes. As the apostle John put it, “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18 ESV).
On the cross, Jesus made a spectacle of the powers of evil (Colossians 2:15); he literally disarmed the enemy. His cry from the cross—“It is finished!”—meant that his work of overcoming every resistance to God’s rule was done. But more than that, through his resurrection, he conquered death. So now death, the ultimate enemy, can be taunted with the rhetorical question: “O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55 ESV). It needs no answer. The same power that was at work when Jesus rose from the dead works in us, too (Ephesians 1:19–20), and no failure or fall can separate us from it. As Paul wrote so beautifully to the Romans:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35–39)
The God who has overcome all things is with us and beside us. Failure, suffering, pain, and trouble all might come. But our God is greater than anything on this earth. And “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (v. 31).
2. BREAK THE LIE
Behind almost every fear lurks a lie from our enemy, the father of lies (John 8:44). And contrary to what s
ome people think, the devil is still spreading his deception. He is a fecund liar, fathering deception, despair, and discouragement.
There will always be a battle surrounding the Christian life. Fear is such an insurgent. It wants to rule without any responsibility; it wants to destabilize us wherever possible.
But the spirit of fear cannot form a bridgehead into the land occupied by a person whose trust is set on the Lord. The enemy can only sow trouble, anxiety, and depression; he cannot reap. That is the key to understanding fear. His only ability is to undermine our callings.
The most powerful understanding I have of this undermining role came to me during a time of real spiritual battle. The more I thought about the tricks of the evil one, the more I realized that he has one colossal failing: he is not God. He is not omniscient. He therefore cannot know—and will never know—the future. He will fight, but he cannot win; the battle has already been won by God.
The devil therefore needs to deceive us into believing that he knows and can govern our futures. He relies on us to do his work: the work of eroding our trust in Jesus Christ. He will throw out misinformation, falsehood, and anxiety in the hope of causing as much disruption as possible. He has no idea which of his lies will hit the mark, because he simply does not know what the Lord’s plans are for our lives. He is therefore disarmed by the truth, which is Christ in us, and it is this truth that sets us free (v. 32).
Unless we feed fear, it will not grow to be powerful. Ultimately, it is illusory and without substance. Gripping and enthralling, yes, and at times utterly destructive, but it is a deception and has to pass. It has no energy of itself. Fear is parasitic, sucking life from us to sustain its claim on our lives.
Fear makes a powerful attempt to grip our attention. A knot in the pit of our stomachs reminds us of its physical consequences, as does the metallic taste of excess adrenaline in our mouths. But once we know that behind most fears lurks a lie, then we can ignore it by remembering God’s truths in our lives.
3. SPEAK THE WORD
Scripture is a powerful weapon and has “divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4). Words of God’s love, of his faithful promises, and of his power—when spoken out in faith—can dismantle the gruesome blockades that fear tries to build around us. If I sense that my own fear index is rising, I vigorously reject the oncoming fears, sometimes quite loudly and always with the sword of the Spirit—which is the Word of God—wielded high above my head. I brandish “the one who is in [me] is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4) as a sword of words. It cuts the enemy down to size!
My friend Charles used to work at a large US investment bank, where he had a boss who used fear to control his team. His boss was malevolent, micromanaging, and sarcastic, and the team was both terrified of him and debilitated by him. Charles suffered from terrible insomnia as a result and eventually had to leave the company due to the stress caused by this boss—though not before officially reporting him to the authorities within the organization.
He had worked for months in an atmosphere of fear and anxiety. It is the great myth of the workplace that instilling fear produces results. It is, of course, true that a boss whom you fear can get some assignments done through pressure and bullying. But it is not sustainable, nor is it moral.
Charles’s colleagues also suffered the effects of this bully. But, two years later and now in a new career that he loves, he reflects on how God carried him through that testing period. Often, he told me, he would walk into the office speaking under his breath, “so do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). He put Post-it notes on his computer with verses that would sustain him during the day. And so it was that Charles, though experiencing what felt like an inescapable nightmare, could still find hope in Paul’s experience of being “hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9).
We have in Jesus the greatest teacher of all time. We would do well to learn from him. In the desert, the devil offered him a range of temptations: food (during a time of fasting), power (when Israel was ruled by Romans), and loyalty (from his adversary). Jesus met each temptation head-on with a sharp retort quoting Scripture. Jesus replied, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’ . . . It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ . . . It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Luke 4:4, 8, 12). There is no gap in the reply, no hesitation, and above all no need to add a measure of logical debate or conversation to empower the riposte. The Word doesn’t need our assistance. It has momentum of its own.
When I was in the middle of a major transaction for the acquisition of a large London store, I sensed enormous angst that would not leave me. It was unsettling. I was unsure of what to do. I had to speak to one of the parties involved on the telephone and felt extremely anxious about the call. As I was waiting to be put through, the music playing on the phone was the theme from Chariots of Fire. As I listened, I had a prompting to look in the Bible. And there in 2 Kings 6 was the extraordinary assurance that there were unseen chariots of fire protecting Elisha from harm: “Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (v. 17). Speaking out that word in faith was a breakthrough and gave me great assurance.
4. REMEMBER TO TRUST
Fear cannot create. If teams of professionals need to find creative solutions to different issues, then they have to work in an atmosphere of mutual trust. Firstly they need to know that their boss trusts them—which, of course, leads them to trust in return. What follows is productive and fruitful collaboration. Fear can force employees to execute projects, but it cannot energize people. Fear is crippling and inhibiting, and it is one of the most dehumanizing forces in the workplace.
I recently read an inspiring article about the way in which Richard Branson runs one of his companies, Virgin.6 His employees are free to leave the office at any particular time; they are not restricted to the 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. routine. The deal is that they fulfill their tasks to the best of their abilities and complete all their work to the standard that is expected of them. They can also take as much annual leave as they like, based on the same principle. In so doing, Branson is creating an atmosphere of total trust and freedom. It is a risky, bold strategy for Branson to take, but by all accounts it is paying off. The employees feel empowered and trusted; the result is that they do their best for Branson because they want to serve him and please him, not because they have to. This is the very opposite of Charles’s experience in the bank.
At a human level, Branson’s model reminds us that reciprocal trust builds flourishing relationships, and flourishing relationships build successful organizations.
At a divine level, God’s ultimate act of trust is to give each of us free will, which empowers us to trust God in return. When we remember that we are trusted, we are emboldened to stand against the claim that fear has the power to dominate our lives. By the Spirit of God, we can consciously embrace the truth we know about God’s character. We choose to walk not by fear but by trust—by faith.
5. THROW YOURSELF IN
In times of intense pressure and equally intense fear, we must use all these strategies. In my experience, fear cannot be dealt with equivocally. It needs the robust flow of the love of God in full flood to drown its efforts. It is the work of the devil to pretend that those lurking fears of the future are live and real. It is the work of Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, to remind us that they have been overcome. If, ultimately, the fear of death is taken from us, what fear can hold us in thrall? Grasping this truth is the object of our lives as Christians: Death has lost its sting. Fear has lost its supports. It has to crumble at the end when Christ is vindicated. But, oh, the damage it wreaks until then!
At the height of the financial crisis in 2008–2009, I had to remind myself repeatedly of the need to fight fear, especially when it threatened to bring such colossal damage to the world. I was asked to speak to a group of business executives on how to respond to the frightening financial tsunami we were facing. I came back to Hebrews 12 and asked the question, “What is the bedrock of life?” The answer is that we stand on a solid rock “that cannot be shaken” (v. 28), which is Christ himself.
It was this knowledge—that there could never be a shaking so severe as to dislodge the life that Christ wanted to have in and through me—that sustained me day in and day out as the crashing markets threatened the whole world. This was one strand of my defense. I also consciously increased my times of prayer, even if I didn’t know exactly how to pray.
NOT SINK OR SWIM BUT SAVED
My favorite painting, which hangs outside my study, is by a wonderful artist and friend, Roger Wagner. It shows Peter getting out of the storm-battered boat with one hand still tentatively holding on to the side. He hears the call of Jesus to come to him. With his other hand he reaches out to Jesus, as a child holding to the side of a swimming pool might reach out to her mother who is just out of reach.
I have often puzzled over this painting. Like so many of the stories in the Bible, the economy of the expression leaves questions unanswered. Peter, along with the other disciples in the boat, was terrified by the storm and by the appearance of Jesus. They thought Jesus was a ghost (Matthew 14:26). Of all the questions Peter could have asked of Jesus, why on earth did he say, “Lord, if it’s you . . . tell me to come to you on the water” (v. 28)?