sorry  for the long delay in blogging again.  its been a busy busy couple of weeks since my last post. I hope to be back in the saddle again.

Makenzie, my oldest, will compete in her first school wide spelling bee.  She was so excited when she won for her class, but this deal today. . .well its a much bigger deal.  We sat with her last night trying to review words that we had gone over before. She would get one or two right, and then she’d get one wrong.   When that happened the biggest tears would puddle up in the bottom of her big brown eyes.  Immediately we would  tell her, “Don’t worry about it.  You’ll get it.”  “You’ll do fine.”  We even made a game of studying the words and it lightened her mood.

Last night when I went into her room to tuck her in, I could tell that she had been crying again.  So I laid down on the bed beside her and asked her what had her so upset.  “I don’t want to be the first one to get a word wrong and have to sit down tomorrow.”  So I told her about the time I was in the school wide spelling bee and how I had to sit down for missing the word “cheif” I mean “chief” and that seemed to blow away that cloud of worry.  Then she said, “I’m afraid I’ll disappoint my teacher, she says I’m her best speller in the class.”  To which I replied, “You don’t have to worry about that, you’re still the best speller because you won the spelling bee for your class.”  But it was her last concern, that stung my ears as she spoke the words, “Dad. . . I just don’t want to disappoint you.”  And the tears began to pour.  Mine as well as hers.

Have you ever felt that way?  The absolute fear of failure.  The fear that if you fail, or maybe even when you fail, that you will disappoint someone.  Man, I have so many times.  And so many times that fear has caused me to do the wrong thing or even worse nothing at all.  I know of people who will never make the commitment to have a relationship with Christ, because they’re afraid they can’t live it.  Afraid they’ll fail.  Afraid they’ll disappoint God.

But I read somewhere, that “perfect love drives away fear.”  And the only one capable of showing perfect love is God.  That says to me His love for you, for me, is so strong that it can even override your fear of failure, your fear of disappointing someone.

So what are you afraid of? What have you avoided because of your fear failure or fear of disappointing someone?

Maybe its time to reconsider.