Learning to walk is no small feat (no pun intended). Think about it. A human being transitions from all fours to just
two, from relative safety to present danger.
The danger, of course, is falling… repeatedly. Ironically, it is the key step (again with the
unintentional puns) in the process. It is
a process that requires purposeful, recurring failure.
Watch a baby as she learns to walk. At some point she stands. She enters into the tension between safety
and mobility. She stands without the
benefit of certainty. She’s not sure she
can do it and, in fact, she can’t. She
falls. She fails. And then she does it again… and again… and
again. She is, by definition, a failure. And she is happy! Not only has she not yet learned to walk, she
hasn’t learned that failure is a bad thing!
On top of that, her parents encourage her to fail
again. Even though she can’t walk, even
when she realizes (especially when she realizes) she can’t walk, they encourage
her to do it again anyway. They are literally
setting (standing) her up to fail… again… and again.
What kind of parents would do that? The answer, of course, is good parents. Good parents do precisely that!
Is God a good parent?
I wonder if it would be okay to think about Christian discipleship the
way we think about learning to walk. Could
we not describe learning to follow Jesus as purposeful, recurring failure?
You may recall the story about how an early follower of Jesus
named Peter requested permission to walk on the water, which Jesus immediately
granted. Peter got out of the boat and
stood on the water, then he walked, then he failed… he sank! What was Peter (and for that matter Jesus)
thinking! And Peter would fail again…and
again. But despite his recurring failures
(and maybe because of his recurring
failures) Peter turned out okay.
