Fear of… success: Bible prayers

• Bible prayers
• Prayers for encouragement
• Faith to rise above

Fear of failure has a unimagined flip-side: the fear of success. The person who chokes because he’s afraid he’ll blow it comes under a cloud of doom. Ultimately in his decision-making, risk-avoidance becomes success-avoidance.

I know what I’m talking about. I have suffered from it. When I was the hardest-working, most experienced college reporter on the UCLA Daily Bruin, my editors handed me the opportunity of the lifetime, an investigative piece that would establish my reputation. I said I was too busy.

The guy who took it catapulted his career. I watched from the stands as a less-experienced reporter took to the field.

I have mulled over that decision lots. I have analyzed and psycho-analyzed it.

It’s better to risk humiliation and go out with a blaze than step to the sideline. But the nasty habit of self-brow-beating is no easy task for anyone who has wrestled with the low-self-esteem demon.

Here’s what’s helped me:

• Prayer
• Bible reading
• Church fellowship with encouraging saints
• Exercise
• Eating right
• Trying to learn patience

And this has hurt me:

• Criticism
• Competition among friends
• Envy and jealousy
• Church dysfunction

2 Cor. 10:5 says, we must bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. For me, it is a struggle. I share these confessions in the hopes that others will be encouraged in similar fights. The enemy of our souls, the devil, wages war against our thoughts. Let’s pray for one another and support one another.