“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.”
Psalms 56:3-4, 9-11, 13 ESV http://bible.com/59/psa.56.3-4,9-11,13.esv
My greatest fear is rejection. I dare not trust too deeply because I might be rejected or humiliated. I am threatened by my own mistakes. I try to ignore them and hope they will pass me by or vanish. But until I admit I have done something wrong or stupid, I am lurking about, trying to hide in the shadows.
Impatience undergirds my fear. I can be so attached to getting a task done that I sometimes finish it mindlessly. I don’t take the time to understand something or to ask a question and end up making a mistake. Recently, I ordered propane tanks through a hardware store for our place in Arizona. I went to a retailer near the park where we live and the attendant said I should go to Home Depot. I never explored what size to order so I fixated on the 100 lb tanks which ended up being over ten times the size of the ones that we were replacing. We have enough propane for at least ten years in one tank.
So I try to hide my embarrassment by ignoring the mistake. I resent my wife for talking about it. Until I took the step of acknowledging that I did not want to ask someone because I would have looked stupid, I was haunted by a simple error. No one is perfect, and there is always room to learn something from our mistakes. But my default is to ignore my own ignorance and rush ahead.
So, be ready for a fight if you wish to have victory. Without struggle and striving,you cannot win the reward of patience. If you refuse to suffer, you will be refused the crown. But if you desire to want the prize, strive bravely and endured patiently. Without effort of fighting, you cannot be victorious. – Thomas A Kempis
A Recovery Pilgrim 