I love to give gifts. It really is a problem for our budget–just ask my very patient husband. I love to scour antique stores, thrift stores, and gift shops for just the right gift for just the right person at just the right time. I also love baskets. You can see how this combination creates both budgetary and space issues for our family: where shall we store all the baskets I collect for all the future gifts to be given?

When I think of the gifts that the Lord wants to receive from me, I think of fruitfulness, as if it would give Him the most glory and joy. After all, Jesus did tell the disciples that it is to the Father’s glory that we bear fruit (John 15:2, 8). And I’ve heard a thousand sermons on the distinction between fruitfulness and faithfulness: our part is to be faithful; He will determine if we bear fruit thirty, sixty, or one-hundred-fold (Mark 4:8).

But today, as I was spending time with Him, the Spirit led me to imagine a surprising offering to present to the Lord on that day when I finally see Him face to face: a basketful of failures.

This image led me to tears, not because God glories in failure or hates fruitfulness and success, but because of what such an offering would mean coming from someone who has wrestled for so many years with presenting successes, with performing excellently.

In his book Trusting God when Life Hurts, Jerry Bridges makes a profound statement that haunts me. “It is far easier to obey than to trust.” In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25: 14-30), the Master gets angry with the servant who buried his talent. His anger stems not so much from the act of burying as from the stubborn distrust the servant had in the character of the Master:

“Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground (Matthew 25:24-25).

His burying of the talent came from a lack of trust in the goodness of the Master, from a fear that the Master would punish failure or expect more from him than was reasonable or possible.

Risking requires great amounts of trust.  Thankfully, we have more than a hunch that our God is indeed a Good Master. We have proof. For our Good Master allowed His precious son to be killed by the unfaithful stewards (see the Parable of the Vineyard, Matthew 21).

As someone who learned incredibly early to perform, I tend to limit my life to things I can do and do well. While I am all for boundaries and margins, often times my small spheres come not from wisdom but from fear. I fear that I might fail, and I fear how such failure might be received, just like the unfaithful steward. I envy those naturally confident, even brazen, servants who don’t have a hard time risking or investing or putting themselves out there.  I feel so much safer burying things or maintaining small circles that I feel I can control.

But love overcomes fear, and Christ’s love continuously calls me to stretch my circles as I seek to trust Him more and more. As such, I can imagine that the gift that Christ would most happily and proudly receive from me on that beautiful day when we embrace is a basketful of bold failures –not sinful failures, but failures that came from stepping out in faith, from venturing out on His Word beyond the territory of my own gifts or abilities.

I love Brennan Manning’s words on this subjects. As a recovering (and sometimes relapsing alcoholic), Manning understood his obvious weakness which led him into the depths of God’s grace through the gospel of Christ. In his book The Signature of Jesus, he writes the following:

“The fear of falling on our faces exacts a heavy price. It discourages exploration and assures the progressive narrowing of the personality. There is no learning without fumbling. If we are to keep growing, we must risk failure all our lives.”

As I prepare to launch and promote another book, the well-worn, long-lived fear of failure keeps creeping to the surface in the form of haunting questions: What if y’all don’t buy the book? In the rare event that you might, what if you don’t like it? What if my words are misunderstood? Worse yet, what if my words aren’t clear or don’t point clearly and concisely to One who is the Word of God?

When the questions come, I simply imagine my basketful of failures. If I fail (and I will, since there are always things we could have said or said better or said differently), I have another faith-compelled risk to put into the basket that I will lay down at His beautiful feet. Reluctantly, I will gently gather and collect failures and fumbles as precious gifts birthed from a growing trust in the overwhelming Goodness of the Master.

In success, we receive and gather our flowers – not for our own glory or aggrandizement, but so we might present them to the One to whom all success is due. In failure (or even perceived failure), we do the same. In both our God gets the glory! I long for the day when I will get to present both my boquets of successes and my basketful of failures to Jesus. Even more so, I long for the day when trusting Him will forever be my default mode.