Latest / Homeschool Insights - Biblical Home Education Inspiration in Under 10 Minutes! / Why Failure Is One of God's Greatest Teachers - Jonathan Brush
Transcript
- speaker-0: We have a school system, a traditional school system, that makes failure fatal. Yes. You can't you can't get an F in high school, you won't be able to get into college. You can't get an F in college, you won't be able to get into graduate school. And if you don't get into graduate school, you won't be able to rack up three hundred thousand dollars of debt and have the best credentials possible to not get a job afterwards and look cool doing it. If you're a young adult listening to this or you know a young adult, ⁓ there's a couple of things that I just, you know, I get super passionate about saying to them. The first is yeah, don't be surprised that there's challenges. ⁓ you know, there's always been challenges post Eden. So that's not a big deal. I I mean, it is a big deal, but it's it's it's also normal, right? Mm-hmm. ⁓ don't be surprised that it's a little confusing to figure out what's next. ⁓ but lean into that confusion and realize that's part of the exhilaration. ⁓ I tell young adults that, hey, hey, good news. ⁓ You know, falling in love is is really exciting and your knees will get weak and your stomach will get butterflies and all kind stuff. And the good news is that's not permanent. So and that's true of all these things that are happening that are new. There's this raw emotional rush. And at some level that's exciting, at some level it's exhausting. And the good news is it's temporary. You know, I mean it you start to get older and see patterns and all those things. And and so don't be afraid of the fact that there's challenges now. ⁓ don't be afraid of things that are new. ⁓ but then realize ⁓ that and and this is so so hang with me for a second. I tell young adults, okay, first you you need to do something about life. You need to know you need to know something about life. And that is that the unknown and the things that you don't control are bigger than anything you control and that you know now. And as soon as I say that, people get all tensed up. I say, but but look, in my life, that has almost always resulted in good things. But but but this illusion of control is is scary because you you need to just face the fact that you're not in control. And then the next thing is to know that, yeah. ⁓ there's evil in this world, and no, you can't fix it. And the rational response to that is black depression. See any name brand German philosopher. But that's not the Christian response. The Christian response is that you live in light of a hope that redeems all things and a promise that God makes all things new. And so then the exciting thing is that you're not in charge of fixing all things because you can't. Instead, God calls you and says, Hey, work with me. I, I, I, I. I'm going to include you in the redemption of all things. And so now you understand that you're not here accidentally, that it's not surprising that the world is broken, that these challenges that are you're facing, they're your challenges. God put you in this time and place for a reason, and that He will equip you to do that. And to do that doesn't mean to get it right all the time, all by by not just almost. Absolutely, you were going to fail. There's no question that you're going to fail at this. ⁓ but God redeems all things, including your failures. And and in fact, without failure, there's no redemption. And your life is built on a cycle of redemption. Right. I mean, that is the definition of the reality of the world that we live in. ⁓ now you put all those things together, and if you strip that all away, here's what I tell a young adult. Be excited. Enjoy this time of life. You know, you know, you embrace some of the exhilaration, lean into this ⁓ and know that you don't need to listen to me. You don't have to enroll in unbound, you don't have to do all these kinds of things. You're going to be fine if you're willing to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and look around and go, wow, God, what's next? And and so that should strip away a lot of the stress. And I hope it instills in your in your gut this excitement to jump forward and say, I wonder what happens next. And I don't have to worry if I mess it up because God redeems those things and I'll learn something no matter what. speaker-1: I love that. That really does go to the question of what do you do when you feel paralyzed? I mean, as an adult or as a you know, parent, you know, of young adults or someone who's pouring into young adults or with kids in general, we can get this paralysis of this fear of failure. Like, I don't want to even try because I'm so afraid of failing. And I think I like how you were talking through reshaping that of like, get excited. Like that, you know, this is something we get to learn from. speaker-0: Yeah, and also understand, just a quick tangent here. We have a school system, a traditional school system, that makes failure fatal. Yes. You can't you can't get an F in high school, you won't be able to get into college. You can't get an F in college, you won't be able to get into graduate school. And if you don't get into graduate school, you won't be able to rack up $300,000 of debt and have the best credentials possible to not get a job afterwards and look cool doing it. Yeah. I mean, so so there's this there's this okay, then you graduate and you find out the only place that system works is inside of education and higher education. Outside of it. Technology is disrupting things all the time. Yeah. And so, so like I think I shared earlier, like, you know, at heart, Unbound is a digital marketing company because that's how people hear about us. Well, we got pretty good at digital marketing. All our metrics are really fantastic. Yeah, until January of this year, when everything broke because of AI and it hasn't recovered yet. ⁓ yeah. And all we do now is fail. This doesn't work, and this doesn't work, and this doesn't work, and this doesn't work, this doesn't work. And we have to fail and fail and fail and fail and then figure out something that works and build on that. And so the sooner you understand that. The sooner you realize that you know, you you there never was a world where everything went worked right all the time. Yeah. ⁓ that's just not the reality. But it's even more so in this world. But people, your your your colleagues, the people you work with, they're kind of come out these systems where failure is fatal. And we actually have hoodies that we ⁓ provide our students with that says failure is an option, meaning that it's gonna happen and that's how we learn and go forward. ⁓ and so you know, as a measure of confidence, like don't be afraid of failure because it's gonna happen, but also. You live in a world you're gonna have to fail a lot to figure out how it works. And that's that's part of the process. And that doesn't have to be bad. It doesn't even have to be scary if you understand that. speaker-1: Mm. That's one of the things my husband says all the time. Cause like fear of failure is definitely one of mine. Like that's one of the things that like, like I really struggle with. Like I don't want to fail, especially when you have like, you know, like what I do is on camera and in front of people. And like people are like, how do you cause I worship, I speak, I MC, I do these different things and it's on a stage. I'm like, like some of my favorite moments are on a stage, but some of my most embarrassing moments are also all on a stage. And so I feel like I have this opportunity to fail all the time. But My husband is always saying that. He's just like, That's okay. We learn from it and you know, and God does redeem it and that you know, so he's just like, Just re rethink how you're thinking. I'm like, Okay speaker-0: There's something deeper though there, Christy, because my guess is if you would stand up on a stage and you were perfect all the time, people would be like, I can't be like Christy. I I don't even know. Christy's superhuman. She's not the same as us. She's different from us. Like she's perfect. Like like all those things, right? But when you go up on stage and you kinda get embarrassed and you know, and there's a there's a stage piece here that you get embarrassed and you recover from it, right? But you do that, people were like, ⁓ Christy. Like sh I mean she kinda kind of relate to her. I mean, like in other words, that's it's it's it's our failures that connect us to people because it is universal. And there's this weird thing in our society where we try to put this social media curated image of somebody who doesn't fail. And honestly all that does is put you on a pedestal and separate you from everybody else in a way that means you can never cross the divide. Right. Right. And so, you know, if if we care about relating to people at some level, that means being transparent enough to say, Yeah, I failed too. And the point is is that like that's who we are, we're human. ⁓ and and so there There's a there's a transparency, there's a vulnerability there that doesn't mean that we get up and just spill our guts and tell everybody about every horrible thing that ever happened to us, but that we are real and and and you know, and and people recognize it when you you know deep in your heart everybody's failing. When somebody comes across all the time as not, there's a falsity there that's plastic. And yet, ironically, we all are scared of of not being plastic, which is exactly the way we connect to people. So and I I say that. having the same thing, you know, just to be clear, I worry about failing all the time. I I'm I'm not I'm not speaking this from a point of perfection. I'm speaking this at point of fallingness and brokenness, messing this up ⁓ and saying, Yeah, I know exactly what that feels like. I also know it's wrong and also do it all the time. speaker-2: This episode of Homeschool Insights is brought to you by Liberty HealthShare. Choosing to homeschool is about making intentional decisions for your family. Liberty HealthShare is another way families across the country are choosing a different path, one that offers a community-centered approach to health care cost sharing that can help you keep more of your hard-earned dollars while getting the medical care your family needs. Learn more at LibertyHealthShare.org. That's LibertyHealthShare.org.