The Broken Pot – How to Overcome the Fear of Failure

Clank! A pot – or something that kind of resembled a pot – was set down on Otto’s makeshift desk. Right on top of his open journal. Not again. He gripped the pen that was in his hand just a little tighter as he looked up from his work.

A short man stood on the other side of the desk. He was smiling; his ‘white’ teeth a stark contrast to the dark face.

"My wife say you fix this." The man said.

At least, Otto was pretty sure that was what he had said. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and reached for the rusted, battered, and badly burned object.  

Everyday!  He thought to himself.  Everyday, without fail, and always just when I sit down to get some real work done!  He looked the pot over - sticking his finger right through a hole that had corroded through the side. This thing is no good! Don't they know what garbage is? 

He knew they didn't. In fact, it was likely that the man or his wife had gotten this pot out of someone's garbage pile in the first place.

He looked up and met the man's eyes again. "No... good." He said, laboriously choosing each words needed to convey his meaning. “I...can't...fix…this.”

Apparently, he thought of the right words for the man's smile disappeared.

"You're no Christian!" The man shouted, throwing the pot to the floor of the little porch on which they stood.

Otto didn’t have to guess the meaning of his words. He had heard that phrase so many times in the last few days that he had it memorized. It was the new response that the natives used whenever he didn't do what they asked him to. They were accusing him of being a hypocrite. Accusing him of preaching something he didn’t practice. Accusing him of not helping them. Yet he hadn't added a single word to his list in over a week because he had been too busy helping them. Besides that, he was doing this language study to help them! The whole point was to learn the language so he could translate the gospel for them.

 With this in mind, Otto was very tempted to shout something back – something that would have been just as nasty. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t because he couldn't seem to remember any insulting words. He had heard the natives shout all sorts of curses at each other, but the phrases never seemed to come to mind when he needed them. With his luck - and God's intervention - he probably would have ended up complimenting the man rather than insulting him anyway. In addition to that problem, he had another - a nagging feeling that they were right.

The man stomped away, leaving Otto alone with the familiar feeling of being a failure. He glanced down at the rust-streaked, but otherwise blank page and the feeling only increased. How he hated that feeling - that feeling of working his hardest and yet getting nowhere! He could just imagine what the missionary board would say when they saw this month’s report. If he ever got around to writing it that was. He would have to say something like: No progress on the language studies. No closer to starting the translation of John. Have been too busy fixing broken pots, busted shovels, bent machetes, and a rusted harmonica. Otto couldn’t help but laugh aloud at his imaginary report, despite how pitiful it sounded.

He rose from his chair, picked up the sorry-looking, little pot at his feet and turned it over in his hands…

Otto Koning had come to Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea to be a missionary and he wasn’t keen on failing that assignment. His job was to win the people over to Jesus. Or, more specifically, to do language studies, keep books, report to the mission board, preach the gospel, and translate the book of John into the native tongue. It was not to spend all his time fixing broken pots, busted shovels, bent machetes, or rusted harmonicas.

Otto had a predetermined vision of what his job in Papua New Guinea should look like and, because of this, he could clearly identify success and he could clearly define failure. But for some reason success always seemed to be out of his reach and failure was constantly frustrating him.  

Most of us, at some point or another, have felt what Otto was struggling with. You know where you need to go, or what you need to do, and yet - try as you might - you just can’t seem to get there! It doesn’t seem to matter how hard we try or how many times we go back to the drawing board because for some reason we’re just bound to fail.

What do we do in that kind of a situation? Well, it seems like there are three options: We can throw in the hat. Quit. Give up. And then try to console ourselves in self-pity. Or we can keep trying. Fight an uphill battle. Be persistent and refuse to ever give up. Or we can choose the third option. We can re-evaluate. We can ask God if our definition of success and our definition of failure is matching His.

Throughout all of his growing-up years, Otto’s dad had told him that he would never amount to anything. He wanted to prove him wrong. He wanted to be a good missionary - to do his job well. Was there anything so bad about that? 

Not really. But what if God’s definition of Otto doing his job well was different from Otto’s definition? What if being a good missionary looked different than what Otto pictured? What if God had a different definition of what it meant to ‘amount to something’ than Otto’s dad had laid out? What if Otto was off in his understanding of what success was? And what if we are too?

The missionary’s assignment was a good one – to win the people over to Jesus. That was done through language studies, book translations, and gospel preaching not through fixing broken-down, no good junk. Right?

Wrong. Otto’s job was to share the gospel and it was just possible that serving the natives by fixing their stuff might do that more effectively than translating the book of John could. Not fixing their stuff didn’t seem to be getting him very far, so Otto decided to put it to the test. He began fixing broken pots, busted shovels, bent machetes, and rusted harmonicas and he did so willingly.

A short time later his supervisor paid him a visit to see how the ministry was getting along. Otto braced himself for the worst. He was dejected. He was miserable - ready to be chided for wasting time. To be excused. Sent home. Deemed a failure as he had feared. The man said,

“What have you been doing!”

 Otto tried to think of some way to explain himself but, a moment later, he found that he wouldn’t have to.

“Otto,” his supervisor continued, “you are ten years ahead of every other missionary we have!”

Otto was incredulous! Apparently, God had a plan in fixing broken pots. Perhaps, He had placed a value even in that rusted harmonica; choosing it to accomplish His purposes!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” (Proverbs iii.5-6)

How many of us have a pre-determined definition of success? How often do we think that we know what will and won’t get us where we need to go? Do you deem anything that deviates from your plan to be a failure? Do you lean your own understanding, rather than acknowledging God? 

What if true failure isn’t deviating from our plans, but refusing to accept His?

The greatest failure of all is the failure to accept the gift of God – Jesus and the sacrifice He became upon the cross to purchase our salvation. You can have all the success in the world, but if you fail in that one point, success is empty. It means nothing and will vanish away. In the same way, we can try to achieve whatever we want – even try to achieve it for God –  but if it isn’t what He desires for us, if it isn’t where He leads us, what good will it be?

The fear of failure can be overcome simply by choosing to trust fully in the person of our Lord  - not just for eternity but in every day He gives. The exciting news is - He never fails.

“He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” (I Thessalonians v.24)

In Christ

quiana