In spending time with Barbara DuGuid a
couple of weeks ago, I keep coming back to the question of, “Do we give our
kids the freedom to fail?” It’s a great question to ask, but the idea seems
a bit counterintuitive. However, the more I have
reflected on this idea the more it seems to resonate with me. When one considers the two possible outcomes we could
want for our children – good judgment and a healthy walk with the Lord – and we
spend some time thinking about how these
traits are developed, we can arrive at the idea
that they NEED freedom to fail.
Let me develop these one at a time. Good judgment comes
from experience. Specifically, it comes from
exercising bad judgment, suffering the consequences, and subsequently learning
from the experience. It is a three-step process,
and we, as a Shannon Forest community, need to be a place that allows this to happen.
More than a decade ago, I was tasked with helping integrate a
recently purchased company. This required me to manage people in two different locations for the first
time. At the same time I began to
report to a new boss. My new boss allowed me to make some bad decisions. They were neither catastrophic, nor were they good.
I will never forget his counsel to
me. He said, "Bob, you learn to make good decisions by making some bad decisions and learning
from them." The remainder of that
conversation focused on what I could learn.
Barbara reminded me how freedom to fail can help strengthen one’s walk with the Lord. My spiritual failure need not drive me to despair, but to the cross instead. There is no condemnation, no guilt, no shame, and no wrath for those in Christ. But there is still sin. Without a strong understanding of God's grace when we sin, and we WILL sin, we will repeat the cycle: condemnation, guilt, shame, and wrath.
Barbara reminded me how freedom to fail can help strengthen one’s walk with the Lord. My spiritual failure need not drive me to despair, but to the cross instead. There is no condemnation, no guilt, no shame, and no wrath for those in Christ. But there is still sin. Without a strong understanding of God's grace when we sin, and we WILL sin, we will repeat the cycle: condemnation, guilt, shame, and wrath.
Romans 8 talks about how there is NO
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus has set us free! God has
done what none of us could do – He condemned sin in the flesh. Without the
freedom to fail, we teach our
children (and our students at Shannon Forest) to project self-righteousness and
then hide behind it. Freedom to
fail allows us to teach repentance, forgiveness,
and GRACE! It reminds us all how great a Savior we have in Jesus.
