As it is, I rejoice not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.
When Mom knocked on my office door—yes, I also work with my mother—and handed me my old high school transcripts with a wry smile, I braced myself. She’d been doing some spring cleaning and stumbled across the incriminating documents. Retracing my chicken-legged adolescent steps is always a humbling exercise. According to these impassive documents, my sophomore year is particularly unforgiving. Scanning them, I see I’d managed to pass one out of six courses, a drama class, the first day of which began with a corporate rendition of the Hokey Pokey if that tells you anything about its rigors. I still remember dancing Mr. Riesman bellowing, “You put your butt in, you put your butt out and you shake it all about,” and thinking, Well, these participation points are going right out the window. For the record, the Hokey Pokey is not very metal.
Of course, my abysmal academic performance wasn’t easy for my folks. It didn’t help that several of their friends had raised roving packs of overachievers. We’d hear about their bulging list of fridge-worthy exploits—dean’s lists, athletic scholarships, acceptance to competitive universities, ensuing European studies abroad, and prestigious internships—in family newsletters that came replete with gorgeous photos featuring matching spotless shirts. (Guess which kitchen appliance these pristine pictures decorated.)
Meanwhile, my mom and dad were hopeful that I’d somehow manage to graduate on time. Fridge stardom may have waved bye-bye to my freshman year, but there was still hope that I’d walk away from the whole ordeal with a diploma. As it happens I did manage to graduate on time, thanks in no small part to summer school, night classes, some truly creative teachers, not to mention the heroic restraint of my long-suffering mom as she shuttled me around on my grand tour of Georgia’s alternative educational institutes. Did I mention I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was nineteen?
For the sake of brevity, I’ll boil my adolescent failures down to a concise list: sports (tried to be the I in team), school (all academic aspirations ended the day I got a guitar), girls (maybe it had something to do with the T-shirts filled with bloody chainsaws and pentagrams), driver’s test (twice—unbearable self-consciousness), friendship (excused reclusiveness as being European), and Christianity (mistook intellectual assent for devotion to Christ). We’ll come back to that last one in a bit.
Parents, was I your worst nightmare? What if I told you that Mom and Dad, far from passively enduring reams of wretched progress reports and teacherly bromides like “he just needs to apply himself,” allowed me to chart a course that took me far from fridge stardom? What if I told you that they allowed me to fail? And what if I told you that this was the best thing they could’ve done for me?
The New Yorker once profiled an unusual app. Known as “Days of Life,” its application is to tell you how long you have left to live. Feed it your date of birth, gender, and country of residence, and it rewards you with a final countdown of sorts. Mark O’Connell, the author of the piece, offers this vivid distillation, “And, suddenly, you’re looking at your life in pie-chart form: a handy infographic of personal transience, an illustration of how close you’re getting to being dead. It’s the Quantified Self in its most reductive form.”1 Tellingly, this tool is filed under the “productivity” folder of the app store, the idea being that this little mortality alarm will increase your motivation to get stuff done.
Social critics often point to the lamentable modern habit of determining a person’s value based on their output. All too often we inhabit a kind of assembly-line mindset that reduces our very existence to “measurable outcomes.” Think about a seemingly innocuous phrase like “I’ve had a very productive day!” Our near-constant reliance on metrics belies an estimation of value that’s equal parts mechanistic and reductive. In his book The Way of the (Modern) World, Craig M. Gay argues that one of the most insidious byproducts of our modern world is the habit of living as though God does not exist: “Stated bluntly, it is the assumption that even if God exists he is largely irrelevant to the real business of life.”2 A disgruntled customer, a dishonest contractor, a dissatisfied client, a disorganized accountant—if the very idea of prayerfully seeking the Lord’s wisdom on dealing with each of these people strikes us as irrelevant and counterproductive, we have reason to pause and reconsider how God’s existence reframes the business of life. If he is indeed real, how could we fail to actively seek his will in all of our pursuits?
Most of us are well acquainted with the “Quantified Self in its most reductive form” because of our relentless techniques for measuring success: We measure the days of our lives, our income, our spending, our social media usage, our followers, our friends, our likes, our caloric intake, our exercise, our steps, our heart rates, our sleep patterns. We have personality tests to help us measure our moods, modify our behavior, and monitor our relationships. Speaking of relationships, we have dating apps crafted by relationship “experts” to help us find a “match” that’s “compatible” with our particular physique and personality. In many ways our vision of human flourishing amounts to little more than a proliferation of numbers.
Compatibility is a particularly hideous word when it’s used in conjunction with human beings. Machines are compatible; human beings are never less than relational. It’s roughly the difference between sticking a plug into an electrical outlet and making love. If that sounds crude, consider the fact that sex robots are no longer confined to science fiction and that a good deal of our entertainment is preoccupied with our increasingly romantic relationship with technology.3
Reflecting on an ad for lotion that dehumanized its subject by displaying only her torso, Wendell Berry draws attention to “the gravitation of attention from the countenance, especially the eyes, to the specifically sexual anatomy.”4 The fact that the advertising industry routinely dismembers the human body to appeal to our hollow sexual fantasies is revealing. These images offer yet another glimpse of our emaciated understanding of personhood.
With its driving assumption that people are nothing more than objects for self-gratification, pornography in particular is one of the most ruthlessly materialistic institutions operating in the modern world. The fact that so many (Christian and non-Christian alike) are in its thrall demonstrates the practical atheism that’s widespread in our culture.5 In sharp contrast Berry reminds us of the beauty of the Christian vision of sexual union:
The difference, of course, is that the countenance is both physical and spiritual. There is much testimony to this in the poetic tradition and elsewhere. Looking into one another’s eyes, lovers recognize their encounter as a meeting not merely of two bodies but two living souls. In one another’s eyes, moreover, they see themselves reflected not narcissistically but as singular beings, separate and small, far inferior to the creature that they together make.6
Though there’s nothing inherently wrong with wearing a Fitbit or setting measurable goals, the habit of viewing humanity in completely instrumental terms has more in common with the primitive behaviorism of B. F. Skinner than it does with Christianity.7
Given the prevalence of the assembly-line mindset, it’s little wonder that so many young people feel a suffocating sense of urgency when it comes to their future. The counseling services at universities are being stretched well beyond their limits by students who are buckling under the weight of this pressure. Pointing out that these young men and women are “coddled,” haven’t known true hardship, or simply need to grow up and tighten their resolve largely misses the point. Many of these young people have internalized the notion that they don’t deserve to live unless they succeed—that they must justify their own existence. Sadly, parents often reinforce this habit of mind with the best of intentions: “I just want what’s best for my kids”; “I have high expectations because I love them”; “I just know that you’re capable of so much more”; “If you don’t apply yourself, you’re going to miss out! Opportunity knocks once!” (Incidentally, this is also why we struggle so mightily to find a place for the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly and infirm. If our functional, on-the-ground view of human value amounts to little more than raw capability, we will on general principle exclude a vast segment of the population, including the most vulnerable members of our society.)
The fear of failure is a perennial human anxiety, of course. But here we see why it’s reached epidemic proportions in our cultural moment. If today’s default is to measure people’s value based on their achievements, success becomes a matter of life and death. We’re not just trying to make great SAT scores or get into the right college; we’re trying to prove that we deserve to live. Success is cast as personal redemption. Recall the Emerson quote from the introduction: “History is an impertinence and an injury, if it be any thing more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and becoming.”8 This poetic rendering of radical autonomy is as bewitching as it is burdensome. Emerson is making clear that the only way to solidify your identity is through your accomplishments in defiance of all the limitations imposed by your circumstances. Why do you think we’re so fond of rags-to-riches stories? When the stakes are this high, failure can and will result in despair. Consequently, this is a mindset with numerous casualties. The great tragedy is that it’s also based on a conception of human worth that’s completely false. It’s simply an outworking of practical atheism.
Practical atheism emerges whenever we betray two tacit assumptions: (1) the material world is all that matters, and (2) our salvation is located in human achievement. John Gray, himself a thoroughgoing skeptic, points out that this ambition is simply a repackaging of the Christian salvation narrative, with humanity replacing Christ as the savior.9 In this sense, many so-called Christian households are filled with practical atheists, well-meaning men and women who believe that worship, prayer, and Scripture are all wholesome, uplifting pursuits that nevertheless have little to no bearing on their day-to-day lives. They leave the church, the Bible study, the prayer meeting, the camp, the conference and go back to the “real world” of finals and competitive internships. Within the world of higher education, the STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) hegemony is yet another outworking of the mindset that construes this world as all that there is and human achievement as our sole means of deliverance.
This line of thinking is far from absent in Christian homes. In their extensive research on teenagers growing up in Christian households, Kara Powell and Steven Argue uncovered a deeply revealing struggle: busyness. Many young people experience a dramatic spike in stress and anxiety because of the relentless pace of their lives. Sadly, parents are often oblivious to the pressure they’re putting on their kids and continue to fill up the roster in an effort to guarantee future success. “Once a source of love and support, the family has become the vehicle (pun intended) that drives teenagers from one activity to the next.”10 I speak from experience: my wife teaches music, and I’m continually astonished by the schedules of her students. From music lessons to volunteer work to play practice to sports events to meetings with college recruiters, these young people operate at the speed of a CEO. Though the reasons behind this agenda are legitimate enough—gaining admission to college, locking down a summer internship, and so on—the frantic sense of urgency also belies our era’s trademark obsession with control and measurable outcomes. The result is that our teenagers feel the (frequently unvoiced) need to justify their existence through their achievements.
Hans Boersma shares a sobering story of the subtle ways practical atheism infiltrates the Christian imagination. On a field trip to the Body Worlds exhibit with a Christian high school, Boersma was taken aback by the breezy enthusiasm of his fellow evangelicals for these displays of plasticized human corpses, which showcased our era’s ubiquitous objectification and exploitation of the human body. Content to label the exhibition as an example of how we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” these teachers and students didn’t recognize that they were unwittingly endorsing the rampant reductionism that underwrites our modern estimation of human value. “Rather, I have become convinced that a certain kind of appeal to the goodness of creation, such as the one I just described, lapses into its opposite: that is, a denigration and commodification of the created order, in this case the human body.”11 Imagine someone telling Wendell Berry that the dismembered female torso from the lotion ad was an example of how we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Publicly displaying a person’s internal organs like slides in a laboratory is not a celebration of creation; it’s a sad reflection of the hollow materialism that most of us take for granted. Such commodification often misleads us into thinking that biology (or any other kind of scientific field) exhausts our understanding of personhood. This is the reason why, for many people, scientists (especially surgeons and physicists) function as modern priests. It’s also the reason why many of us view prayer as a last resort—the place to which we retreat when medicine and all other modern miracles have proven ineffective.
But powerful lies remain lies. If Christianity is true, the quantified self in all its reductive forms turns out to be a particularly vivid idol of our age. Most importantly, our value is not predicated on our talents and abilities. If it were, countless human beings would no longer matter. Rather, we are endowed with infinite worth by our Lord because we are made in his image. Since this worth is conferred by the Lord, it is irrevocable and extends to every human being, including those on the margins. When we internalize these truths, it’s possible not only to experience failure without being crushed but also to learn from our failures and to grow.
In recent years several celebrated academics have reminded us that behind every successful résumé is a long list of failures. Johannes Haushofer, an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs at no less an institution than Princeton University, is one of the more recent people to publish a “CV of failures.” Haushofer believes that many of our unrealistic expectations regarding success persist because of our habit of keeping our failures invisible. His aim in publishing the CV of failures is therefore to “balance the record and provide some perspective.”12 May his tribe increase.
Perhaps our unwillingness to confront our shortcomings is to blame for the deeply misguided belief that we can somehow spare our children from the necessary pains of failure. From the bruises and lacerations on a healthy toddler’s legs to the bumper-car dynamics of a budding driver with a learner’s permit and a teenager’s sense of immortality, we know that failure is an integral part of any form of success. On the one hand, we need to set up rules and boundaries to safeguard our kids and curb self-destructive behavior. On the other hand, we have to acknowledge that they’ll never learn unless we allow them (within reason) to make mistakes. We also need to remember that we can’t save ourselves, and we certainly can’t save our kids. Christians are the ones who have turned to Christ for that very reason.
Like aging, sickness, and death, failure is a guarantee. I know that’s a bummer of a sentence, but we’ve all got insider knowledge here, even if we’re supposed to drown it in beach trips, margaritas, and binge-worthy shows. Maintaining a constant image of success is an unwritten law of North American social etiquette. Think of the sardonic lines from the real-estate mogul in the 1999 film American Beauty: “In order to be successful, one must project an image of success at all times.”13
This perpetual charade is soul-wearying business. Imagine permanently inhabiting the mindset and comportment of a formal dinner—the kind of function where you chew carefully and assiduously avoid anything messy. (I know I’m not the only one who handles the food on my plate like radioactive material in these strained circumstances—stick with soups if you can.) Given the pervasive nature of online culture, many of us feel like we’re at a kind of never-ending business dinner. As the line between public and private becomes more and more blurred, it’s hard to avoid the demand to always be “on,” the demand to project an image of success at all times.
But despite all of our efforts, failure remains unavoidable. Since it’s unavoidable, however, it follows that there are legitimate ways of responding to it—there are ways to fail well. Thus we arrive at the paradoxical notion of successful failure. The fruit of successful failure is discernment. Looking back on my adolescence, I have come to see my parents’ decision to allow me to fail as extraordinarily brave and wise. I know they endured their share of sleepless nights, but their hopes for me went well beyond the slick sheen of a fridge-worthy performance; they wanted me to be the kind of person who exhibited true discernment rather than mere proficiency at jumping through a given set of hoops. Sadly, most of us know people who perform well and live poorly. My parents saw my own flourishing in more holistic terms.
Etymologically, the word discernment combines two crucial forms of insight, namely, penetration and discrimination. Discerning people are thus able to see into the heart of a given matter while maintaining proper distinctions.14 In effect, discernment points to something and says “this,” and in so doing also offers a crucial distinction by saying “not this.”
If this sounds a bit abstract, think about diamonds. To the untrained eye most diamonds look identical apart from size. But as any expert will tell you, each diamond is highly unique, and only the most refined techniques will help to establish its value. Because of diamonds’ elaborate geological formation, the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) calls each one a “miracle of time and place,” as unique as a snowflake. The GIA is famous for introducing the 4Cs, which form the standard criteria for estimating the value of a diamond. The 4Cs are color, clarity, cut, and carat.15
Each of these categories requires scrupulous attention to detail. A diamond achieves its highest color grading when it’s colorless or as nearly colorless as possible. This quality is established by comparing the diamond with a master stone. Clarity has to do with a diamond’s purity. Given its arduous journey to the earth’s surface, diamonds frequently pick up what mineralogists call “inclusions”—a euphemism for flaws. Most of these flaws are not visible to the naked eye, but under 10x magnification they are readily apparent. The highest mark that a diamond can earn concerning clarity is FL, which stands for flawless. The uninitiated may be surprised to hear that a diamond’s cut is much more about the transmission of light than it is about the shape. “Diamonds are renowned for their ability to transmit light and sparkle so intensely. We often think of a diamond’s cut as shape (round, emerald, pear), but a diamond’s cut grade is really about how well a diamond’s facets interact with light.”16 A successful cut thus requires a supreme level of artistry and craftsmanship. The fourth C is the most straightforward: carat simply refers to the weight of the stone. Taken together, the 4Cs offer a near-panoramic view of discernment, showcasing its deep perception as well as its highly discriminating gaze.
For a fulsome picture of discernment in the world of human affairs, look no further than Christ’s response to the widow’s offering in Luke’s Gospel:
Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” (Luke 21:1-4)
A surface-level reading of these offerings would simply equate the more substantial gifts with greater generosity. But Christ’s gaze is always penetrating, taking us well beyond mere outward appearances. Noting the widow’s impoverished circumstances, he draws attention to the fact that she gives “all she had to live on,” whereas everyone else is simply drawing from their surplus. Her gift is greater because it demands tremendous self-sacrifice, and personal cost remains one of the greatest litmus tests of a person’s actual generosity. Plenty of folks love to be seen as generous. Precious few are willing to pay the high cost of real generosity. By illuminating the selfless motivations behind the widow’s gift, Christ distinguishes her from those who are doing little more than fulfilling a social obligation.
Think also of the apostle Paul’s famous message to the Athenians in Acts 17. Surveying their wealth of religious iconography, Paul perceives a deep-seated spiritual yearning and points to the altar with the inscription “to the unknown god” as especially emblematic of this yearning (v. 23). Tellingly, he quotes from two pagan poets to underscore the point, calling us God’s “offspring” and arguing that “in him we live and move and have our being” (v. 28). But Paul does more than cut to the heart of the matter; he introduces a crucial distinction by invoking Christ and his resurrection, thus exhorting his audience to move beyond the amorphous spirituality of the barren altar. He calls us to serve not an unknown god but the living God. Compressed into this marvelous passage is a rich blueprint for all holistic cultural engagement, one that showcases the twin necessities of deep perception and proper discrimination. As Paul demonstrates, we can and must affirm the deep spiritual longings that we encounter in our cultural landscape while also recognizing the proper boundaries of these diverse expressions.
Discernment is interested in the fine details. While Paul acknowledges that the altar showcases legitimate spiritual hunger, he swiftly transports his listeners to a firm destination:
What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. (v. 23-27)
Failure can and often does engender discernment, and the painful lesson usually comes courtesy of a collision with boundaries. For the most part, we crash into boundaries when we don’t recognize them or try to defy them.
Our musicals may extol the virtues of defying gravity, but most of us learn firsthand that this is a fool’s errand. It’s the reason our son’s pediatrician noted the cuts and bruises on his legs with approval: “That’s what I like to see. It means he’s learning.” Learning from falling and failing, that is. Discipline in the early years works in much the same way. When no becomes your child’s mantra, a crash course with boundaries has been charted. Through countless tantrums and Band-Aids, these boundaries become firmly established, and the child learns to navigate the physical and moral space of your home and, eventually, the world. Stated in the most elemental terms, what my wife and I want for our children as they grow into maturity is the ability to make wise decisions—to say both “this” and “not this.” We want deep insight and discrimination. In a word, we want discernment. We want our kids to transmit the light of Christ like a well-cut diamond, with the full recognition that those jeweler’s cuts are rarely painless.
In many ways the teenage years simply reprise the toddler phase with a higher level of sophistication: Your toddler will yell no or melt in your arms, but your teenager will tell you a compelling story as they justify their infractions. Few of us are novelists, but most of us are gifted storytellers when it helps us get what we want.
Since teenagers aren’t machines, they don’t come with owner’s manuals. There’s no life hack for mastering an adolescent. Once again, though techniques, strategies, and methodologies all have their place in human affairs, attempting to solve the problem that is your kid has more in common with B. F. Skinner’s “social conditioning” projects than it does with Christianity. It’s the reason this book doesn’t have Seven Easy Steps to Fixing Your Child as a subtitle.
I can’t offer you seven easy steps to fix your child, but I can draw from the wisdom of my parents when they navigated—endured is more like it—my teenage years.
In Desiring the Kingdom, James K. A. Smith argues that the church needs “a contemporary apocalyptic—a language and a genre that sees through the spin and unveils for us the religious and idolatrous character of the contemporary institutions that constitute our own milieu.”17 He doesn’t mean that pastors need to try their hand at writing dystopian fiction. To see the world through apocalyptic lenses doesn’t yield smoldering visions of decimated cities and roving bands of ragged survivors. Rather, it reveals the spiritual realities behind the curtain. Consider Richard Bauckham’s description of the spiritual dynamic of the book of Revelation:
Revelation provides a set of Christian prophetic counter-images which impresses on its readers a different vision of the world: how it looks from the heaven to which John is caught up in chapter 4. The visual power of the book effects a kind of purging of the Christian imagination, refurbishing it with alternative visions of how the world is and will be.18
In this sense, the quantified self is an apocalyptic figure because it discloses the nature of so much contemporary idolatry—namely, our tendency to turn technology and convenience into a graven image. In response to Smith’s challenge for a contemporary apocalyptic, I offer the category of apocalyptic realism, which is a sensibility that takes its cues from Revelation by recognizing both the impermanence of our world as well as its deep-seated spiritual underpinnings. Like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, like Paul in Athens, like John on the island of Patmos, the apocalyptic realist views the world from an eternal perspective. An apocalyptic realist will marvel at the splendor of the natural world while also noting its transitory nature. Apocalyptic realists know that flowers bloom in both meadows and cemeteries, and that the sun rises gloriously over churches and cancer clinics alike. Apocalyptic realists also recognize that there’s no such thing as pure secularity—no neutral, a-religious, nonpartisan sphere where we can pursue the common good with zero ideological interference. The apocalyptic realist agrees with David Foster Wallace that “in the day-to-day trenches of adulthood, there’s no such thing as atheism.”19
We might point to the Body Worlds exhibit as a celebration of that fact that we’re fearfully and wonderfully made. An apocalyptic realist would reply that this is simply practical atheism in disguise—a viewpoint that’s underwritten by scientific naturalism rather than the Lord of all creation. Likewise, if Christian parents push their child to attain a form of success that has more in common with contemporary culture than it does with the biblical vision of salvation, the apocalyptic realist will remind them of Paul’s piercing words regarding the obstinacy of unbelievers: For all our talk of Benedict Options and cultural crises, most of us simply operate as though all is well and that the current arrangement is just the way it is.20 So we resign ourselves. In the words of Walker Percy—an apocalyptic realist par excellence—“Beware of people who think that everything is okay.”21
Though he didn’t use the phrase, my dad helped to foster apocalyptic realism in our household. He taught us to see how human culture looks from heaven, and he did this by subtly parting the curtain and revealing the hidden idols of our age. I remember watching a sitcom as a family and Dad calmly pointing out that it was presenting us with a world devoid of all serious moral consequences. Dishonesty, infidelity, sexual abuse, wanton promiscuity and objectification, vicious gossip, and even murder—all were trivialized and emptied of any true moral significance. As Dad said, in good apocalyptic realist fashion, “This is just socially acceptable nihilism.” Believe it or not, these observations arose organically at the moment. Dad wasn’t reading from a script or sniffing out a teaching moment, and he certainly wasn’t one of those annoying sages who just can’t resist demonstrating their spiritual superiority by trashing all of your favorite shows. He liked the shows and laughed with us. But he also wanted us to see that Walker Percy is right; everything is not okay. My dad helped us distinguish between the kingdom of heaven and Babylon.
Let’s return once more to the kitchen on that fateful morning when Dad asked me why I called myself a Christian. Part of the reason the question landed with such force is that Dad had imparted to me an eternal perspective, one that remains irrevocable. Once I saw the world through apocalyptic lenses, I couldn’t unsee the vision. Dad’s question did more than expose my hypocrisy. It exposed the idols of my heart. Like so many so-called Christians, I offered lip service to the gospel, but the shape of my life betrayed the same practical atheism that surrounded me. I believed that this world was all that mattered, and I believed I could save myself through my achievements. I may have put all my eggs in the death-metal basket instead of an Ivy League education, but my basic aspirations matched all those seeking salvation on human terms.
One of my more devastating failures arrived when I was in my late twenties. In keeping with the highly personal nature of most of our failures, this one runs the risk of appearing trite on the outside. I assure you it was spirit-wrecking. I’d become convinced that I was called to be a writer, and I decided that I needed to study in a formal setting. In good strategic fashion I applied to only one highly competitive program, reasoning that this degree was practically written in the stars. But, as we all know, it’s easy to mistake desire for destiny. I was promptly rejected. When I opened the envelope and read the standard “Dear John” verbiage, I thought my life was ending. In bed that night I was surprised to hear myself say out loud, “If I can’t be a great writer, I don’t want to be.” My wife regarded me with sober eyes, “Well, then I think you need to examine your heart.”
The next day I did something that nearly made me physically sick. I closed my office door, got down on my knees, and thanked the Lord for the rejection. It was a touchstone moment in my spiritual life because it opened my eyes to the idolatry colonizing my heart. I saw that I was making that most American of mistakes, conflating my identity with my achievements. Before the rejection, if you’d asked me the source of my salvation, I would’ve told you it was Jesus Christ. I was once again sliding into a habit of mind that replaces the Lord’s grace with one’s gifting. I was actually trying to save myself. Though I suspect this is a tendency that will remain a thorn in our flesh this side of eternity, it’s possible to avoid being crippled by it if we learn the painful lesson of placing our earthly endeavors in their proper context. Being a celebrated writer is, of course, a laudable achievement. But expecting it to repair one’s soul amounts to seeking redemption through transitory talents and abilities. A casual glance at people who have “made it” reveals that massive gifting is often a mixed blessing. It’s hard to focus on our limitations when our ears are ringing with constant applause. Though I may wince as I say it, I’ve grown to thank the Lord for not placing this kind of burden on my shoulders.
I will never stop being grateful for the Bible’s unflinching depiction of failure. According to Dallas Willard, “It is in Peter and his life that we begin to get a glimpse of what is really possible for human life.”22 How hopeful and how revealing that this glimpse comes through such a faulty vehicle—for Peter’s spiritual victory has its roots in abject failure.
Willard opens his discussion of the apostle by distinguishing between conversion and the spiritual transformation that follows in the life of a believer. The fact that so many North American Christians don’t even recognize the distinction shows just how unrealistic our expectations are concerning spiritual maturity.23 Without putting it into words, we seem to believe that a conversion experience (especially a dramatic one) will produce a momentum sufficient to bypass all major impediments to spiritual growth. We often think conversion precludes the rest of our lives. In Willard’s words, “When we think of ‘taking Christ into the workplace’ or ‘keeping Christ in the home,’ we are making our faith into a set of special acts. The ‘specialness’ of such acts just underscores the point—that being a Christian, being Christ’s isn’t thought of as a normal part of life.”24
We get saved and quickly return to life as usual. This is the reason many so-called Christian households operate as though God is a distant reality that only has a bearing on their existence on Sundays, holidays, and when they’re at a point of crisis or close to death. It’s the reason Dad’s question about why I called myself a Christian infuriated me. I might as well have responded, “What’s that got to do with anything?” For me, at the time the answer was “nothing.” What’s the answer for you?
In Colossians 1:28, Paul uses paternal language once again as he writes to this young church he has worked so hard to nurture. Calling to mind the “riches of the glory of this mystery” (v. 27) of Christ revealed to the Gentiles, he writes, “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” As we’ve seen, maturity requires a successful encounter with failure. That is, failure leading to discernment.
My parents weren’t content with lip service—they were aiming to present me mature in Christ. That’s why Dad ambushed me with that question. If his question brings discouragement to you, think of Peter once again. Bold, headstrong, and adventurous, at times it’s difficult to distinguish his courage from his impetuousness. And like so many of us he often starts so well. He’s the first out of the boat in the storm, walking on water with his Lord. But soon his eyes are on the turbulent waters and he’s sinking like a stone. He’s the first to confess Jesus as Lord, but soon his foot is in his mouth when he resists Christ’s words concerning his eventual death on the cross. “Blessed are you” followed by “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16). Quite a mixed track record.
This mixed performance continues on the night of Jesus’ betrayal. Though Peter does his level best to defend his rabbi, he receives a swift rebuke when he reaches for his sword and cuts off the right ear of the high priest’s servant (John 18:10). Willard points out that Peter initially makes good on his claims to follow his Master, even if it costs him his life. The others fled, but Peter “really was stronger than the others” because he followed at a distance to the palace of the high priest—a bold maneuver given his violent outburst earlier.25 But despite his good intentions, the night ends in abject failure for Peter, and he fulfills Christ’s prophecy by denying him three times before the rooster crows. It’s the kind of downfall that could undo anyone. As with the roiling waters on the night that Jesus came to the disciples on the water, Peter took his eyes off his Lord and began to sink. This time he sank to his lowest point. Though he earnestly desired to follow Jesus, the deeply ingrained ways of the flesh catapulted him back into the throes of practical atheism, where the exigencies of his immediate circumstances eclipsed his devotion to his Lord. As Willard puts it, “What a firsthand knowledge Peter gained this night of ‘the motions of sins, which work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death’ (Rom. 7:5)!”26
But Willard is right: Peter truly does show us just how much is possible in human life, even one as tangled, confused, and conflicted as our own. In the end Peter’s failures, profound as they are, do not define him. Look no further than the moving scene in John 21:15-17. Instead of a confrontation, Jesus offers a gentle chastisement, asking Peter, “Do you love me?” three times, a number that matches each of his denials. Peter’s first two responses are more subdued; his experiences have chastened his tongue. But the final question provokes grief, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you” (v. 17). Then Jesus instructs his servant to “feed my lambs,” a command that reinstates Peter’s ministry and reinforces the prophecy of Matthew 16:18: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
In the end Peter’s failures don’t prevail against him either. He continued to struggle on occasion (see in Galatians 2:11-13). But his devotion to his Lord remained steadfast, even to the point of death (John 21:18-19). Speaking as someone with numerous failures to my name, I’m greatly encouraged that Scripture numbers Peter among its heroes. If Peter can be restored, so can you and I, and so can our children. What if our homes reflected this liberating truth? While my parents didn’t encourage my failures, they also recognized that they didn’t have to define me. In truth, our Maker is the only one with the right to define us. The sooner we recognize that, the better our lives will be.
Failures are inevitable for fallen human beings, but thanks to the exceeding mercy of our Lord they can also serve as key ingredients in our spiritual maturity.