Wednesday, October 8, 2025
I’m “a natural” when it comes to failure. My natural proclivities are to preach doom inside my head, like a hellfire minister on the street with a microphone.
The mind has a natural, negative slant. The so-called battle between good and evil is happening in the mind – victory tussling with defeat, success entangled with failure. We struggle with holding success upright. Like an imbalanced weight, success topples. Sometimes failure seeps in, if we allow it. It’s like a clutch on a standard transmission – success has to be held in the sweet spot to engage a forward direction, slowly, and steadily. Too soon, and the engine chokes. Too late, and the clutch burns.
The image of being heroic is like a shy kitten that will hide if you approach it too soon. What little success you imagined is eventually replaced with the old, “familiar” images of destitution. Success is snuck up upon, lovingly. Faith is groomed. It’s technical, like learning to make a clutch work.
The so-called secret to success is quietly moving in the direction of your dreams. Beliefs tend to sag. Faith withers and can slip. Doubt creeps in, fear triggers the old, old stories of doom. And so, you bolster yourself up again, quietly. Like a repetition at the gym, girding up the loins of faith requires deep steadiness and alert engagement.
“Tell me the old, old stories,” is an evangelical hymn. The “old, old” stories are supposed to be about love; but they’re about doom, burning in hell forever. Those are the familiar oldies – burning the clutch, killing the engine. Make success familiar by steadily releasing your fear. Keep your foot on the gas, but don’t punch it. The stories of success are far better. Now tell me, which stories do you love to hear? The old, old stories of hell are getting old. Don’t kill it. Steady your faith.