The Opportunity to Fail (and then to Fail Again and Yet Again)

The short post below might be especially relevant for the hesitant, the calculative, the timid, the fearful, the self-doubting, the self-distrusting, the unassertive, the lazy, and the coward. I guess I liked the post because there is a sense of challenge and utmost urgency in it.

Ecclesiastes 11:1 comes to mind: "Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days." One interpretation is to take a calculated and wise step forward in life (The MacArthur Study Bible). This always feels too risky and uncomfortable, it feels like dying, and it might even fail. But unless we take the plunge, and grab the bull by the horns, and stare death in the face, we'll never ever know.

Perhaps, if you will consider it, Jesus took the biggest risk of all by leaving the best place and coming to the worst place. Though the cost was too great, yet he felt that it was worth it; it was worth every last drop of his blood. And by losing all, he gained all (John 12:24).

Mon, Jan 17, 2011 Subject: Seth's Blog : Cashing the check

Cashing the check
A check in your wallet does you very little good. It represents opportunity, sure, but not action.
Most of us are carrying around a check, an opportunity to make an impact, to do the work we're capapble of, to ship the art that would make a difference.

No, the world isn't fair, and most people don't get all the chances they deserve. There are barriers due to income, to race, to social standing and to education, and they are inexcusable and must fall. But the check remains, now more than ever. The opportunity to step up and to fail (and then to fail again, and to fail again) and to continue failing until we succeed is greater now than it has ever been.

As Martin Luther King Junior spoke about a half a lifetime ago,

"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late."

Posted via email from benjamintoh's posterous