J.R. Briggs

Failure // Rejection // Shame: a decision of yielding

September 2, 2010

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I’m amazed by the response I’ve gotten from the EPIC FAIL Pastors’ Conference idea I threw out a little while back. Comments, tweets, facebook responses and a few dozen emails from around the country – even the world – have been coming in. It seems that many are thinking about failure in ministry, but very few are addressing directly. I’m convinced its also why Henri Nouwen’s counter-cultural yet deeply intuitive book In the Name of Jesus is so popular and connects with so many Christian leaders.

The past two years has involved a lot of personal self-discovery through this oft-feared concept of failure. A series of events forced me to wrestle with my people-pleasing tendencies and my deep-seeded fears and anxieties.

One of the elements I’ve had to face head-on in the mirror of my soul has been the root of those seemingly paralyzing fears. What was I so afraid of? I sat with that question. I journaled. I let time go by in order to gain some perspective. I had respected people purposefully listen to my external story and my internal story and the way that narrative was being played out.

About a year ago I thought I had located the source of most of my fear: failure. I thought, Yeah. That’s it. I’m afraid of failing. I’m afraid of being a big screw-up! There: I said it. I felt relief that finally I could have the courage to face it, embrace it, acknowledge it.

But the more I peeled that emotional onion back, the more I realized that I actually feared rejection from other people, which resulted when I failed to do something – big or small, significant or insignificant. I, like most human beings, like to be liked. Nobody wakes up one day and says, “I hope by the end of the work day to be rejected by at least three people.” (But if you’re a telemarketer, I guess you’ve got to expect that on a daily basis).

But after sitting with that for several more weeks I realized that it still wasn’t it. I actually feared shame. Shame is triggered when I am – we are – rejected by others, which is triggered when I/we fail to meet some sort of expectation other people and/or culture places upon us. It may be slight embarrassment that makes you chuckle when you think of it (We all seem to jump into those “Most Embarrassing Moment” discussions quite easily, don’t we? Why is that?) Or a thought may make you blush as you recollect a situation that happened in your past. Or it may be so severe and deep and utterly shaming that it seared your soul and required/requires years of time and buckets of money on a professional counselor. To whatever level we may feel it, shame is still shame. Most of the time, perfectionists (of which I would be a card-carrying member of this club) don’t necessarily desire to be perfect in order to achieve success, fame or power. Instead, deep down they desire to be perfect so as to avoid feeling and experiencing shame.

Failure leads to rejection which leads to shame.

This discovery is not profound. We all feel varying levels of failure, rejection and shame and, if we have the courage, we might be able to pinpoint exactly the room of our fears in one of those specific areas – to name the shame.

When we experience failure/rejection/shame psychologists tell us that we usually have one of two reactions: fight or flight. We might fight in one of a few ways: physically (we might hit someone – like a schoolyard brawl in elementary school or, worse yet, a murder reported on the local news), verbally (shout, be defensive or sarcastic, etc), mentally/emotionally (becoming bitter and/or enraged, seeking revenge internally).

Some of us, by nature, are fighters… others of us are not. If we don’t have personalities who fight back, many of us take flight. We run away from the situation in various ways, too. Physically (we might literally back away, walk away, shuffle away or run away so as not to be hurt by rejection and shame even more), verbally (if a co-worker makes fun of an idea or shoots down a brainstorm in a meeting where your boss and other co-workers are present,  we might become silent and think to ourselves, I will never share another idea with this team again) or mentally/emotionally (we shut down, become numb, feel beaten down and just sort of give up internally).

Depending upon the situation (or the person) we may fight today and take flight tomorrow. But most of us choose one of those two responses as ways to keep us from shame – or keep us from experiencing even deeper levels of shame than we are presently experiencing. (Click on the graphic below to enlarge).

This is a vicious and powerful force in the universe because it is vicious and powerful force in every human soul. Fear and shame motivate people – I know it motivates me – more than we’d all like to acknowledge. Maybe the better word than motivate would be control. Fear and shame exist to control, paralyze and enslave us. Shame is one of the most powerful forces upon our lives.

I’ve wondered in the past year where the gospel comes into this failure/rejection/shame pattern. As I’ve sat with it, I think there’s a third response we can make in addition to fight or flight. We begin to move in the direction of freedom when we choose to yield.

When we yield to the gospel – the work of Christ in our lives – and voluntarily release our responsibility on the outcomes of the situation, we begin to move in the direction of gospel freedom. It’s important to note that the gospel never guarantees that we’ll be free from failure (in fact, being a committed follower of Jesus, we’re told, means that you should expect more failure than the average guy on the street). When we fail – and begin to experience rejection and shame – we have one of three choices: we chose to fight, we chose to run away or yield to the work of the gospel in our lives.

When we yield, the gospel intercepts or interrupts the powerful inertia that moves quickly towards shame and sends us along a new track, a new way of thinking, a new direction in the trajectory of freedom.

The gospel states that yes, we failed. But the gospel says that Jesus loves us, rescues us, in the midst of the mess we’ve made of our lives and he accepts us anyway. Sure, others might still reject us, but if we realize that the God of the Universe loves me and accepts me despite my past, that evokes a sense of belonging like nothing else can. And when we are accepted by God Himself, we experience the polar opposite of shame: honor. The gospel moves us from rejection and shame to acceptance and honor.

Acceptance and honor.

The Gospel says that despite our failures, we are accepted, honored children of the King. Jesus speaks of this in Matthew’s gospel:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” – Matthew 11:28, The Message

I want in on this kind of life.

Forgive the armchair psychologist thoughts today (and hey, don’t reject me because of it!) but I’m convinced if we get this diagram into our minds, our hearts, our souls, our conversations – into our very bloodstream – we’ll be freer and more whole than ever before.

And just because I know this, doesn’t mean I get this entirely. I’m healing and growing and trying to move in the direction of acceptance and honor, slow as it may seem.

May you live in freedom today knowing that you don’t have to prove yourself, defend yourself or earn respect; instead, may you yield to God, who accepts, embraces and calls you his honored child.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free…” -The Apostle Paul to the church in Galatia

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