Afraid to Flop?

Last night we had our weekly college bible study. At some level, I was incredibly thankful. We actually had 9 folks there! We had 2 the previous week which led us to watch Space Balls instead.

However the lesson was pretty much a complete bust. Discussion was nill. Most of it was simply my fault-I was unprepared because I had spent 3 hours helping a young lad get ready for ordination exams when I needed to prepare. I thought preparation from the previous week would be sufficient. It wasn't. Not even close.

The subject matter, legalism, should have been more dynamic. But it just wasn't. Perhaps the makers of the study should be faulted, but probably not. I should have just changed the questions.

There were times in the study when I just wanted to pause time. Pause time and leave. Not dig my head in the ground and eat worms. Just leave. The largest and last meeting of the summer, and it was just hard. I was frustrated for a number of reasons and I'm sure it showed.

Some nights you "just don't have it." Things flop. You can be over-prepared or under-prepared.
Sometimes there are clear mistakes you can learn from. At least I learned that preparation from a previous week does absolutely no good the next week.

Yet there is a sense of freedom that can only be experienced in failure. We're free to flop. We can mess up. We can take steps of faith and mess up. And that's alright. My security can't lie in the fact we got 9 college kids to come. My security can only rest in the unchanging truth that I'm still a child of God. And who knows, maybe I wouldn't have treasured that truth as much if I didn't flop last night? So I guess I really shouldn't be afraid to flop. You neither.