“Do Hard Things” by Garrett Prewett
Posted by sam
Do Hard Things.
Atychiphobia: The fear of failure. More specifically, a fear of failure that we allow to stop us from doing things to move us forward towards our goals.
We love to portray ourselves as successful, we enjoy doing what we are good at, we often avoid what we are bad at. That’s human nature in many of us, its easy and fulfilling to simply do what is easy and can make us feel good or look good. For some, myself included, that was sports. I needed identity, everyone does, so I simply made it what I was successful in. I became sports. On the outside, I worked hard to get better at soccer, to get stronger in wrestling. It appeared like I was “doing hard things” and where yes, I was working hard I was not doing hard things. I was staying in my comfort zone because I was too scared of people finding out that I could fail. If I did not succeed in sports then what did I have left? If I stepped out of my comfort zone and things didn’t go well then I thought I would lose my successful. I saw failure as final. However, my identity was never designed to be created by me. I was never destined to be defined by my success or failures.
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10, ESV
I was created for more. More than a life of wondering if my success would outweigh my failure, more than an identity of just myself. I was created for the glory of God. The chains slowly start to fall the more you press into the Lord for your identity, the more you look to him for direction the more free you are to be who he created. You are not limited to your comfort zone of small successes and more importantly how can there be fear of failure? If you are scared of letting God down you need to stop thinking that you are holding him up.
Camp Ridgecrest has helped me learn that lesson more than anywhere else on earth. I truly felt like every year God has answered my prayer of giving me hills to climb and the strength to climb them. Failure has become part of the journey to being who I was designed to be. When I step outside my comfort zone, it doesn’t always go well, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I had the courage to do it, with the knowledge that I have an all powerful God at my back.
“It is hard to fail, but it is worse to have never tried to succeed”
-Teddy Roosevelt
Do Hard Things.
Garrett Prewett
Chief Igniting Pitch
Posted in Echoes From Final Fire | Tagged Camp Ridgecrest, Christian, Ephesians 2:10, Fear of Failure, Garrett Prewett, ridgecrest, summer camp