Dear Friends,
As I write this letter there seems to be much in the news about the increasing levels
of fear and anxiety that can be found in our society.
Perhaps one of our most deep seated fears is centered on the concern that we are
failing in some way, and especially in this success focused culture in which we live.
It is this fear of failure that our consumerist and materialistic society is built on.
Advertisers play on this fear more than any other in order to sell us products that will,
we are led to believe, help us to succeed (wherever we feel such success is most
needed) in our jobs, homes, relationships, hobbies etc. etc….
I am reading a wonderful book at the moment (The Gospel of Falling Down: The
beauty of failure, in an age of success by Mark Townsend) which suggests that at
the heart of the life of Jesus and his message lies failure rather than success. It is
not in the climbing of the ladder of perfection that we meet God but rather in falling
from it.
Again and again, throughout the Bible, it is those who have failed that are most
‘blessed’ by Jesus and not those who believe themselves to be the most perfect.
The prodigal son, the woman caught in adultery, the son who refuses to go and work
in the vineyard but later changes his mind, Levi the tax-collector and his sinner
friends – these are the ones that discover a new and more fulfilling way to live and
not the success focused Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees or as Jesus said
himself, ‘I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners,’ and ‘It is not those who are
well who need the doctor, but the sick.’
All of us are ‘sick’. We are not the people that we were made to be or the people
that we could be. The problem is that we spend much of our time either denying this
or running away from it in an attempt to become something or someone that we can
never be.
The Bible on the other hand points to the fact that God loves us as we are, failings
and all. And that it is often through our failings and short comings that we can most
meet with God and know something of his love and provision for us, or as Paul
writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, ‘My grace (says God) is sufficient for
you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’
Instead of hiding our weaknesses and failings away perhaps we need to be more
willing to share them with others and acknowledge them before God. It is through
them, rather than our strengths, that we will grow most and bring the greatest hope,
joy and healing to others as this wonderful Chinese fable illustrates:-
A water bearer in China had two large pots. Each hung on the ends of a pole, which
he carried across his neck. One pot had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect
and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the
stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half
pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its
accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was
ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only
half of what it was made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer
one day by the stream….’I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side
causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.’

The bearer said to the pot, ‘Have you not noticed that there are flowers only on your
side of the path, and not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always
known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path. Every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick
these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you
are, there would not be this beauty to grace my house.’
Perhaps it’s time for more of us to stop living in fear of our perceived failings and
shortcomings and instead of trying to eliminate, deny, or run away from them accept
them as God accepts them – means through which his grace can be made known.
Yours in Christ,
 
Simon