Biblical Business Radical: Fear of Failure?

Recently our church had to revise the road as its entrance. I looked at the new curvy roadway and wondered if the civil engineer considered snow plowing patterns. I realized that probably most successful people have had failures in decision-making and learned from them. It's easy to consider road design if you basically have 3 seasons. 

It's easy to design "finder's fee" contract if there aren't long-term relationships. I remember a referral fee being owed to a third-party engineer for bringing a commercial customer to our company. No business was transacted at the time but 10 years later...new players in the customer firm sought us out. We won a contract. And without any effort by the engineer, he was owed a "finder's fee" of a significant dollar amount because of the size of the contract, and the open-ended language in our contract with him.

Before we begin an initiative, we'd like to know there's a high probability of success. No fault in that. However, if the margin of error or the margin of uncertainty stops us cold, we have a high degree in the fear of failure. I remember seeing a sign in small airfield building: "If at first you don't succeed...don't try skydiving." 

Some business people who are also followers of Christ believe that success is guaranteed because of their status as believers. If you're not succeeding, something's wrong with your faith. There are many promises in the bible purporting this. There are also many examples where failure occurred despite great faith: Christ in the garden of Gethsemane wishing there was an alternative to crucifixion in order to accomplish the Father's plan; Job; the Israelites in Egypt post-Joseph and pre-slavery. And then we have Paul's "list" of the faithful--some even "the world was not worthy" of their presence--in Hebrews 11 who were victorious, blessed, "obtained promises" and experienced resurrection of themselves and loved ones...and also the ones who were martyred, or lived in extreme poverty, suffering from diseases and oppression and without any homes, family or community. "All of these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised..."

Christian businesses fail too, in spite of prayer, talent and dedication of the business to the Lord. Does it mean you lack faith if your business is struggling? No. It's just not the right time. Or the promise is meant for someone else--"...because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect." If the business is dedicated to Him, and consistent with a servant mission--and we believe we are but stewards and not owners--then it's His prerogative to decide if the business succeeds or fails.

I once had to learn that lesson. After the loss of several hundreds of thousands of dollars, I realized that, unlike the parable of the talents, instead of increasing my pile of talents, the Lord decided to redistribute the wealth to His other children. And it's a good thing to prune some businesses that are inhibiting growth for other businesses. There are necessary endings. Only the Lord knows what's best for all in His kingdom.

Failure is not a sign of disfavor. Even in the best of times, not all Israelites or first-century Christians thrived economically. Monetary or military success is not a sign of God's favor either. Otherwise, we'd be worshipping the way Persians, Greeks, Babylonians and Romans did and wouldn't even take a chance to believe in the God of the Marginalized People--the weak, the poor, the powerless, the least, the last and the lost. But like the person designing roads and the contract writer, you might only prevent future disaster from having learned from past disasters. And this is a best reason not to fear failure: we can learn from them, and we can watch God redeem situations despite our best/worst efforts.