I think God is leading me to start a business, but I’m afraid of failure.
I don’t blame you. About one in five new businesses fails in its first year, and almost half fail in the few years after that. Starting a business isn’t only difficult work; it’s risky.
Many of the pursuits God calls us to—whether starting a business or a ministry or a family—entail risk. Whenever we choose to live sacrificially, we risk things not working out.
Let’s take a closer look at what might cause failure and how we can respond with faith.
Risks from the Outside
Our first reason to fear failure is that we don’t know what’s outside us. Circumstances out of our control—from the weather to the economy—can determine the outcome of our start-up. But that doesn’t mean we always have to roll the dice blindly. God has given us intelligence, wisdom, and information. We can use risk-reward accounting to help judge whether a pursuit is wise.
Let’s say your venture is a coin toss—heads, you win; tails, you lose. Whether one should “take a risk” on that coin might depend on the potential rewards. I wouldn’t fault you for turning down “heads, I win $1.01; tails, I lose $1.” That’s not a particularly good risk. But what about “heads, I win $100; tails, I lose $0.01”? That’s a risk you should take! And you should avoid “heads, I win $1; tails, I lose our house.”
Even when measured methodically, risk can still be scary. Bad things happening for reasons outside our control is one of the evils in our world. The Preacher famously says, “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all” (Eccl. 9:11). Time and chance—that’s risk.
You might start a venture that fails despite your swiftness, strength, wisdom, and brilliance. You can mourn if that happens, lamenting that we live in a broken world. But you can also rejoice because facing those outside risks offers us an opportunity to trust God.
The Preacher later exhorts us to take risks:
Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land. . . . As you do not know the path of the wind . . . so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. Sow your seed in the morning . . . for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. (Eccl. 11:2, 5–6, NIV).
Living faithfully in a risky world should make us more inclined to venture risks because we trust there’s a good, holy, just God who sustains and upholds all things.
Living faithfully in a risky world should make us more inclined to venture risks because we trust there’s a good, holy, just God who sustains and upholds all things.
If you fear failure because so much is out of your control, you can turn that into a lament and into trust. That’s the beginning of the gospel. Your salvation, too, is outside your control—the result of the plans and actions of a God who loved you before you were born and the result of a Savior who keeps you steadfast. If we can trust God with our eternal destiny, we can also trust him with the destiny of our earthly ventures.
Risks from the Inside
Starting a business is also risky because we might not know what’s inside us. We don’t know if we have what it takes to succeed. Am I smart enough, strong enough, wise enough?
This can be the hardest pill to swallow. Failing because we didn’t have what it took, and maybe won’t ever, can crush our identity. In our pride, we might fear failure because we fear that people, ourselves included, will know we are a failure.
There are two pieces of good news here. First, God knows our limitations. If we discover a defect in ourselves, God isn’t surprised. He’s the One who created us and who graciously guides us, knowing who we are. Consider God’s reply to Moses: “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak” (Ex. 4:11–12). If you don’t have what it takes to succeed, God already knows that. If God is indeed sending you out to take a risk, he’s able to provide what’s lacking in you.
Second, God invites us to lay down our pride and embrace more deeply the identity he gives us in Christ. The gospel begins with the recognition that we don’t, and never will, have it in us to earn our salvation. As Christians, we spend our lives living deeper into that identity. Our fear of failure may be God’s gracious gift to make us realize we haven’t yet fully put on Christ—and that God has more in store for us.
If God is indeed sending you out to take a risk, he’s able to provide what’s lacking in you.
God may be calling you to a pursuit that’s destined to “fail.” God called Isaiah to preach to a people who would have ears but never hear. But even that “failure” wasn’t failure. Neither was it a failure when Steven was stoned, when Paul was arrested, or when Jesus was crucified. What looks like failure to us could be God bringing great success.
Interrogate your fear of failure. It may be that you’re rightly sensing this venture isn’t a good move at this time. On the other hand, you might have lingering disbelief in God’s goodness. But if you bring that disbelief to Jesus, he can turn it into deeper faith. When God calls us to take risks, one of his desired outcomes is always that we learn to trust him more.
The Gospel Coalition