Freedom to Fail

 It started with a staff meeting that left me overwhelmed by the enormous potential of my job. We’re launching a new project in the next six months or so, a project that is equal parts my baby and my boss’ brainchild, and therefore, entirely the LORD’s endeavor.  In any case, these first two weeks of work have found me torn between total rapture and absolute terror. I’ve been so excited at the prospect of this project that I’ve felt frozen as to how exactly to move forward.

I’m more than capable of seeing this thing through, of pushing it forward. I have the skill set and working knowledge, and what I lack, the rest of my team has in spades.

 And yet, for all my brainstorming and brave faces, I’ve felt a little stuck.  At one point I found myself thinking, “Maybe Boss picked the wrong girl for this job. Maybe I can’t do it after all.”

 That lasted about two minutes until he came back from his meeting and pulled up a chair beside me.

 I told him—in no uncertain terms—just where I was with this project of ours. My body language spoke louder than my words, I’m sure, because he countered my fears with decisiveness and adept salesmanship.  And then he said something that shattered my fears completely.

 “Heather, you have permission to fail at this,” he said, one hand holding a Styrofoam cup of dark soda.  “It’s okay if that happens.”

 I sat back in my chair and took a breath.  It wasn’t like the clouds parted and angels sung or anything like that. It was just this steady assurance that this man—who stood proxy for the other five members of our team—was completely okay with whatever happened. He believed in my ability to make this thing grow into something great.

 But if it didn’t, that failure didn’t say anything about what anyone would think of me.

No one would whisper behind my back. It wouldn’t affect how trusted or worthy I am to my team. My value to them is not in what I do, but in who I am as “Heather, the woman”, rather than as “Heather, the Kingdom Dreams Storyteller.” My value is in who I am, and not a title, or the product I create.

There’s freedom in that.

I wonder how many times we operate out of this spirit of production, out of this I am what I do instead of how the LORD calls Himself, I am who I am.  Our identities, after all, are not wrapped up in failures or successes, in triumphs or tragedies or products and projects. Our Abba does not love us because we can do anything for Him. He loves us because we are His children. 

In that love, there is freedom to seek until we find. To get messy and make mistakes. To pioneer a new path and not wonder if He’ll be proud of us if we don’t make it perfectly. To sit back and breathe easy, because there is freedom to fail.