Denis Waitley said, “Success is a process that continues, not a status that you reach. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.” I find this very applicable to the Christian life as well. Living out our faith is a continual learning process. We will never achieve a life lived perfectly. While some might see that as a discouraging statement, I would say that if you do you are missing the point. The whole point of the journey is not to arrive, but rather to walk, to strive, to live more like Jesus.
To be certain, we will fail, and we will fail often; but failure is a good thing! Nothing has ever been accomplished without a good deal of failure preceding the accomplishment. No one gets it right the first time, and every failure is simply an opportunity to learn something and be better for it. Life is one long cycle of fall down, get up. It’s our desire to get up over and over again that builds our character and strengthens our faith. If we never fell, we would never need Christ.
Often we hold back from doing Kingdom work because we are afraid of failure. The Bible says that if God is for us, who can be against us? No matter what trial we face, God is bigger, stronger and more powerful. What is there to fear? Fear is evidence that Satan is alive and well, because it is he who whispers fear into our hearts. We need to always press forward. Life will come at us full force, but it is up to us to determine whether we simply will wait for it to hit us, or if we will rush headlong into whatever may come.
Life lived intentionally, a life where we race into the fray regardless of the outcome, is a life of adventure and excitement. Living the Christian life in a purely reactive manner is not only ineffective but it is dull and ultimately life-less! We need to engage our world, the people around us and those far away. We need to demonstrate the love of Christ to everyone at all times. When doing so results in our getting knocked down, we must have only one reaction: get up and lean into life again; unbeaten, undeterred and unafraid. Lean into life with the power of Christ and dare it to knock you down. Faith and courage are built through enduring the storms.