Original Entry:
December 20, 2008
McMinnville, OR
But my brothers who went up with me made the hearts
of the people melt with fear. I,
however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. Joshua 14:8 (See also: 2 Samuel 17:10)
Coasting through life
is a great temptation for men. As families establish and careers stabilize a
great temptation for men is to become comfortable. We mistakenly assume that
worldly and spiritual comforts are synonymous. They are not. God is constantly
stretching and growing out faith. Maybe this is why the older a man becomes the
less willing he is to risk everything for the King.
I believe the
greatest fear for a man is fear of failure. What if everything he has built
crumbles? What if he loses it all? What if his failure becomes a public
spectacle?
So what?
I
would rather be the man in the arena than the man sitting comfortable in front
of his big screen. Teddy Roosevelt said it best: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The
credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by
dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short
again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but
who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the
great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in
the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at
least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those
cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Embrace failure. “Fail while daring greatly.” If a man’s heart
is going to “melt” let it melt with
almighty fire of God as it refines the comfortable into the courageous!
As Caleb recounted
his experience of spying out the land (Numbers
13:25-33) he remembers how the report of a dozen men caused the entire
nation of Israel to “melt in fear
(14:8).” Listen to what Caleb
recounts, “I, however, followed the Lord
my God wholeheartedly.
My wife recently sent
me a valentine’s card that said, “I will go out on a limb for you.”
Someone else wrote,
“If you want to get out where the fruit is you have to climb out on a limb.”
You may fail. Your failure may go public. You may lose it all. You may choose
to join the ranks of, “those cold
and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Or,
you may choose to risk all you have for all God has for you.
