Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.
“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

• Joshua 1:1-9

The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

• Deuteronomy 34:8

As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
“Yes, Lord,” they replied.
Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.

• Matthew 9:27-31

“God looked upon an anxious new leader and gave him the Words of a lifetime. He began by reminding Joshua of the adventures he had enjoyed as Moses’ protégé through the years. Joshua had been witness to a rich history of miracles and magnificence, of God proving His faithfulness in a trek through a hostile empire and then into the wilderness.
“God encouraged Joshua to remember what he had experienced as Moses’ partner in ministry—how He had led Moses and how He had performed mighty acts to help Moses lead the people. God assured Joshua, ‘As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.’ Joshua was to view his daunting task through the perspective of God’s previous demonstrations of power and faithfulness. …
“When we walked into the little house where we would live, we saw a sign taped on a kitchen cabinet door:
“GOD’S COMMANDMENTS ARE GOD’S ENABLEMENTS.
“To this day, I don’t know who put the sign there, but I believe God moved them to do it. It suddenly dawned on me: God wouldn’t tell me to do something that He wouldn’t enable me to accomplish! Why should I be afraid if God had committed Himself to my success? What God did for Moses, Gideon, Jeremiah, Joshua, and others, He would do for me. And He did. For twelve years, God patiently helped me learn to be a pastor and caused the church to grow. When we left Fort Wayne, God had proved to Donna and me that the only way we learn to trust Him is to step out of our comfort zones into the ‘fear zone’ and say yes to Him.”

• Dr. David Jeremiah, Hope, Living Fearlessly in a Scary World

To explain the part of the quote after the ellipsis, Dr. Jeremiah talked about praying over an offer to start a new church in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  He felt the fear of failure, but he prayed and eventually took the job.  In moving into his new house, he found the sign.  Not a bad sign for the new pastor.

Dr. Jeremiah starts with a brief biography of Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ).  He ran for president and was doing pretty good.  The race was not decided, but then he backed out and let John F. Kennedy obtain the election.  LBJ became his running mate as Vice President.  But people asked LBJ why he backed out when he had a decent chance to win.  He had a fear of failure.

LBJ’s father was a big rancher.  He started a risky business venture and became rich.  He was the first person for miles around who owned a car.  He even hired a chauffeur to drive him around.  But then, the business failed.  LBJ was an impressionable teenager.  The family lived in a small shack, barely a step up from being homeless.

When I read that, it reminded me of my life growing up.  I was the unwanted child, in my mother’s eyes, but my Dad knew that if my mother’s will, which must be obeyed, had one son being a preacher and the daughter being a school teacher (in rebellion, becoming a speech therapist for a school system – much to my mother’s displeasure), the family needed a third child to run the family turkey business.  I grew up loving those stupid turkeys.  Then the turkeys were all gone when I was in the first grade, and we had to leave the farm by the time I was in the second grade.  Each time my mother saw me after that, she was reminded that I was there to run a business that had failed, making her punishments even more vicious.  Luckily, we had a nice house next to my mother’s parents’ home.  There was no mortgage, and we were never in fear of homelessness, but I developed a fear of failure.

Each year, I would be near the tops in my class, and I feared getting the final report card for the school year, afraid that some administrative mistake would have me repeat the grade.  My parents and siblings laughed at the irrational fear.  While some people love that tightness in the chest and the light headedness before a big race, I hated it.  I linked the light headedness to how I might not win the race, and once that fear gripped me, I rarely did.  And when I started submitting short stories so that I could get published, the rejections came back, and I became paralyzed.

In reading this chapter, I had to search the major job decisions of my life.  The risky moves led to a lack of success.  The safe moves might pay the bills, but they did not advance my career.  When I had a choice, I placed stability and security high on my factors in choosing a job.  I did not want to fail.

Then after a lifetime of failure, God tapped me on the shoulder and said that He wanted me to write for Him.  When our will aligns with God’s will, He provides the enablement to which the sign on Dr. Jeremiah’s kitchen cabinet referred.

In this chapter, it seemed Dr. Jeremiah poured over each verse that is quoted from Joshua above, one or two verses at a time.  Joshua was following Moses.  When Moses died, they did not move for thirty days.  They wept and mourned the loss of Moses.  Just imagine how Joshua felt.  He mourned for Moses also, but then, it looked like the people had lost hope.

Joshua was enabled.  The Spirit was upon him.  God had promised him success.  And God commanded him to have courage.  But when they failed at Ai, he fell on his face, wondering what had happened.  God rebuked Joshua.  God told him to arise.  There was sin in the camp.

With that sin dealt with, Joshua led the army fearlessly, even asking God to hold the sun in the sky for a day so that he could thoroughly defeat one particular foe, a group of allied armies.  Yet, when Joshua allotted the land to various tribes.  Most of those tribes had difficulty.  They were afraid of failure for the enemy had iron chariots or giants.  In less than a generation, they forgot that God had stopped the flow of the Jordan River at flood stage for them to pass on dry land.  But their first victories were with Joshua as army commander and Moses as their leader.  Without Moses, Joshua did … okay …

But now both were gone.  A fear of failure often results in a failure to try.

In Matthew 9, Jesus said that according to their faith, let it be done.  The two blind men took a risk to approach Jesus, and their step of faith was rewarded.

I remember my time as a Cub Scout Day Camp director.  The camp ranger had set up a three-rope bridge.  It was only a few feet off the ground.  If the boy was heavy enough, maybe only a foot off the ground.  The exercise was to boost confidence without much danger at all.  Some boys refused.  But then other boys did it due to peer pressure, cursing me with each step.  I was the director who wanted them to do this.  All they had to do was hold onto one rope with one hand, one rope with the other, and then step on the third rope, one foot in front of the next. 

I used this exercise to boost confidence, not instill a fear of failure.  In the army, I traversed rivers on a one rope bridge, which I thought was great fun, but it takes skill whatever method you used.  The two-rope bridge is the hardest to use.  If the ropes are loose or the person going across fears failure, he probably will.  I have seen the ropes reverse, the rope the feet were on flipped above the rope the hands were on, and within seconds, the soldier was in the river.

The three-rope bridge is easy; if low enough to the ground, there should be no fear of heights.  Sure, the rope wobbled, but the ropes wobbled even more when you had a lack of faith in the ropes and in the process and in the constructor of the bridge.

But a fear of failure is like the oppressive fear that Dr. Jeremiah wrote about in the first chapter, a fear of fear itself.

Have you experienced failure?  I think we all have, but has that failure led to an irrational fear of failing?

Who do you not trust?  Do you not trust the constructor, or Creator?  Do you not trust the process, or God’s Laws?  Or do you not trust the safety net, the fact that God is there to catch you if you fall?  The fall might hurt.  When I lost my job and was out of work for a year, I lost hope of ever getting a job, but I did not lose my faith in God.  It just took me a while to figure out why I had to experience failure after I had tried to take the safe route.  I was not taking God’s route.

The route was not a safe one for Joshua.  And when you take the risk in faith along God’s route, He carries the heavier burden.  All you do is hold onto each rope and then put one foot in front of the other.  You pray and have faith.  And God ensures you reach the other side.

Lord, strengthen me.  I have experienced failure.  I have experienced the fear of failure.  And You have infinite patience with people such as I.  thank You for helping me through to the other side.  I have heard people say that faith is like a muscle.  It gets stronger the more you use it.  Thank You for giving me the gift of faith and teaching me how to make it stronger.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.