Keep Pounding Away

I have a reputation for being pretty good in front of people. It takes a lot to make me afraid or nervous. I’ve been in front of people all my life. There are family videos of me at the age of four or five, waving my hand in time from the platform, standing next to my dad.

For years, I led worship for teens in both a youth group and a Christian school. Twice a week, I would get in front of a bunch of kids and sing my heart out. Usually, it was terrible.

I have sung and played guitar in some of the most embarrassing, awful situations. I have preached absolutely terrible messages that upset and angered people for decades! I am and expert at looking like an idiot. I know how to fail miserably in front of people.

In order to learn how to do things well, we have to do them badly. Others, people who know they will take a hit for it, need to let you fail miserably.

But you have to just keep pounding away! You have to keep trying, keep putting it out there. You can never say, “Well, that’s it. I’m done.” The only way you get better is to do your absolute worst, be told it is terrible and learn not to do that again.

I am thankful for men like my dad and many others who put me up there to be embarrassed. I really am. They let me fail early and often so by the time I got to my thirties, I was failing far less frequently and far less spectacularly.