As many of my long term readers know, I took up tennis about 5 years ago, and have learned many spiritual lessons along the way, some of which I’ve shared on this blog.
I’m not a natural athlete, so how to swing a racket, hit a ball with control, and score a point, have taken a lot more work for me than perhaps to others who have run around on fields, thrown balls, and scored points since they were little kids.
But I’m progressing. Yay!
I started working with a new coach a few months ago who has brought my game a long way in a short time.
At his persistent urging, I swing at the ball with gusto and confidence now, can put on the proper topspin, and make some impressive shots.
I’m learning to drop my caution and “go for it.” It makes all the difference.
A handicap of mine on court has been caution. Not a conscious state of mind, but an unconscious fear of failure, I’ve recognized. Rather than over hitting the ball by throwing caution to the wind, I’ve pulled back and pushed the ball over the net. Well, I get the ball over the net, but I wouldn’t do anything with it to win a point, and it comes wailing back at me. Not a winning strategy.
One of my “court” prayers has been to conquer the fear, let go of caution, and trust the stroke to place the ball correctly if I hit the ball correctly. It works, fabulously. Caution is leaving my game. And I’m playing much more effectively!
Fear of failure is a horrible detriment to progress.
I’ve watched my son learn to play tennis over the last 5 years, and he’s never had a fear of failure. He just goes for it every time. In his early years, he was constantly hitting the ball long, and I could easily beat him in games with my cautious strokes. But through trial and error he learned to hit the ball correctly and now he pounces all over me. It’s not even a contest anymore he is so far ahead of me in tennis skill. He didn’t let fear hold him back.
I’ve applied the lesson to spiritual healing.
As fear of failure amounts to failure on the tennis court, it also becomes a huge hurdle to progress in spiritual healing.
If we harbor a fear of failure when we turn to God in prayer, we pull-back in our faith in God’s ability to heal us. Our confidence is weak, our prayers half-hearted, and our hope undermined.
Fear of failure in prayer can begin really small, like a baby seed planted in a fertile garden. It might start with an observation of someone else’s prayer that didn’t bring the intended result, or arguments from a neighbor contending that prayer doesn’t work on significant issues, or from aggressive ad campaigns touting medicines as the cure for the problem we’re praying about. Whatever the influence may be, each time we entertain a suggestion of failure and harbor a contemplation of it, it’s like watering and fertilizing that small seed in the garden which then germinates and grows into a bigger plant.
It’s best to keep the alien seed out of the bed in the first place before it grows into a monster that appears to tower over us! Don’t harbor any suggestion of failure. Don’t let your prayers get hobbled by caution and doubt.
Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God, — a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love.
I love those words “absolute faith.” Powerful, and right on.
From what I’m learning on the tennis court, caution, fear and doubt are losing strategies. They hamper freedom of movement, cause one to back off when he should be forging ahead, shackles play with indecision, produces wimpy shots that lose the game, and prevents one from advancing to the next level of play.
Failure in Science is impossible. Spiritual healing is not about fixing a body, restoring matter or repairing the human mind. It’s about reflecting God, and that comes naturally to us as children of God.
We are spiritual—now! And our spirituality possesses all the strength, health, sight, might, intelligence and life needed to fully express God. We do not lack. And that’s a truth you can pray out from with confidence.
No more fear of failure….
What do we do if we have already let the “alien seed grow into a monster”?
Thank you, Evan. I appreciate and can relate to your comparisons of your tennis playing issues to the practice of Science.
I don’t agree that failure is impossible in Science, because Mrs. Eddy points out quite a few things that can hamper your ability to heal.
But I appreciate the spirit in which it was written. And it is a help to me.
Of course, error is never a monster, but only seems like it to a material sense of things. And a key to reducing the “monster” down to size–to nothing–is to start reasoning out from a spiritual perspective, rather than a material one.
Material sense finds reasons to fear. Spiritual sense finds reasons to feel secure and safe.
And this point coalesces with the next commenter’s objection to “there is no failure in Science.”
By “in Science,” I mean in Truth, in spirtiual reality. And truly, there is no failure in spiritual reality. All is sustained by God, and forever. There is no matter, disease or error in God, in Truth. All is pure spiritual goodness.
And this is where Christ leads us, out of sense where failure does seem real, to pure spiritual reality where failure is impossible.
As we understand more and more that life is sustained by Spirit, not by matter, fear of failure diminishes and shrinks until it disappears.
The belief that life is subject to material conditions is what opens thought to possible failure. Knowledge of life in Spirit has no sense of possible failure, for in Spirit, life is eternal, with no exceptions.
Wonderful post! Fear is a big one… But consider all that can be gained by getting past it: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard…”
All I can add is that I’ve found it helpful to bypass fear by finding the task at hand (topsin forehand or prayer) more interesting than anything else, to the point where you are completely absorbed in/by it.
For all it’s limitations, at least (and for the best) the human mind can’t hold more than one thought or opinion at a time.
Thanks Evan,
That was a great post. Not to harbour any suggestion of failure – essential to progress. I was thinking today about how to be a more effective practitioner, and you hit on it – to have absolute faith in God. Love the affirmation too that failure in Science is impossible. I find as I progress, I can better discern and dissect my own thoughts, as you have done, and sort the good ones from the bad. Thanks for sharing your insights.
Why identify yourself as not a natural athlete? Of course you are, as God’s full complete expression.
Please explain.
That old belief of “I’m not a natural athlete” has substantially fallen away now that I’ve demonstrated over it. It was a lie all along! Yay…
I wrote it into my blog so my readers would understand what I have had to mentally deal with.
Failure in Science is impossible, so you say. Like the second comments, I don’t agree that failure is impossible in Science, but for measurable reasons, not limited esoteric ones. Nobody is cutting a hole through Christian Science’s roof to get healing. In probably a thousand or ten thousand or even hundred thousand to one ratio, people are still showing up in doctor’s offices and operating rooms to get what they need, despite a ‘century of recorded healings…” So you walk the semantic tightrope to say failure is impossible. Not only is failure possible in Science, it is in progress.
Thats a great interesting post Evan…Thanks for sharing the knowledge 🙂 In reading these spirituality secrets one should learn to process them and be aware of where he or she may be falling short in understanding.
The statement “failure in Science is impossible,” is an absolute statement of Truth. It still holds. It means life in heaven is harmonious, healthy and eternal. That’s what Science is–the realm of God, the realm of heaven, the realm of harmony. So, to completely and totally dwell in it is to be safe from any possibility of failure. It’s a long term goal, one might argue, for we all have much to learn. But all will eventually grow to that understanding.