I have been praying through the emotions of failing. When I run my mouth and speak what shouldn’t have been spoken. When I have multitasked too much and I mess up with a client. The urge to run, hide, and never show my face again gets strong. The fight or flight instinct kicks in and my first response is to run as far away as possible. Where does this feeling come from?
I believe it stems all the way back to the fall of man. When Eve chose to listen to the snake and seduce her husband into following her. We know as women the power we have over our men, it’s almost scary at times the influence we have in our men’s lives. When Adam and Eve chose to listen to the serpant and ate the fruit, their eyes were open to good and evil. Instead of seeing themselves as perfect, flawless, and the beautiful creation God created. They became aware that perhaps, maybe, they were not perfect. For the first time, in full force, they felt shame, guilt, and what must have been horrible mental torture.
In the cool of the day, God was walking in the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve heard him and hid. Why did they hide? They were embarrassed, they were ashamed, for the first time the possibility of not being perfect entered into humans minds. This shame, guilt, fear, and insecurities would be passed down through thousands of years.
How do we overcome fear of failure and the need to hide? We stand naked in front of God the father. We go before Jesus Christ naked and ashamed. We sob in their holy presence. We stand there eyes squeezed shut, then open our eyes one at a time, and discover they are both looking at us with the same look of love as when they first created Adam and Eve for the first time. We stand there and soak up the acceptance, love, and healing. We find that in our nakedness, when we have nothing to give back but a broken heart and naked body, that I am enough. I don’t have to bring anything. I am not required to be perfect, I am not required to be flawless, those are labels our fallenness as humans put on each other. When we stand in our nakedness before Jesus Christ and God the Father, we then ask Christ to take my place on the cross. I admit my naked imperfection and he trades me for his pure, precious, perfect blood. I become covered and I am able to stand once again, as Adam and Eve did, in front of the father. No longer naked, but fully clothed in grace, dignity, love, accepted, and completely, totally his!
The world screams loudly and it’s hard some days to measure myself according to how my Father God sees me and not as the world sees me. When I make mistakes, hurt people in my life, and belly flop I need to slow down and feel the full weight of the awful emotions that go with blowing it. I need to stand naked and ashamed in front of God the Father and let him remind me of who I am. It’s not what the world thinks of me, it’s not even what Mark or our kids think of me. It’s what God thinks of me, it’s whether or not I am aligned with what he is asking of me. When I am aligned with him the need to run and hide is less. I’m not going to say it goes away completely, there are still times I have to force myself to stand before the one I offended, hurt, or messed up and it affected another. I still hate being imperfect, but it is slowly getting easier. Slowly getting easier to let myself off the hook. After all what is the worse thing that can happen to me? Literally, death is not even the worse thing that can happen to me!
Life is full of pain, I hate the pain, I hate the evil. There are days it makes me literally sick to my stomach. David Crowders lyrics, “Because He lives I can face tomorrow” has become my life anthem. Because he lives I can conquer anything, even imperfection!