Falling forward
Why children are better equipped for enterprise, life, and success than you are
Have you ever watched a toddler learn to walk?
They fall down. A lot.
Have you ever done something so difficult in your adult life? Something that required so much failure?
I doubt it.
I know I haven’t.
I’ve been wondering how important this is.
I’m considering that it might be an awful lot.
A few days ago I was thinking on the call to childlikeness we find in the words of Jesus.
Matthew 18:2-4
Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
He says things like this a lot.
It’s a central theme of His teaching.
And then we, adults, tend to ‘adult’ on the subject into adultlike shape… and I think maybe we miss it. I guess, mostly, it’s that I know that I miss it. Regardless of everyone else.
So I’ve been thinking about it and I keep coming back to this essential thing children do that I cannot.
They fall.
I think maybe there’s something very important here. Because I hate falling down. And a toddler falls again, and again, and again.
They learn to fall forward, ready for the next try.
It’s frustrating, sure.
Maddening, undoubtedly.
But they don’t quit.
So why do we?
When exactly did I stop expecting to fall and start trying to sell the world the story that I don’t?
Because that was a really bad deal.
I want to take that back.
I think it was somewhere before adolescence… life became about limited consequence and lost the sense it had of unlimited potential.
I think I did this because it looked and seemed safer to me in the moment.
I was learning to protect myself.
I got scared.
(I was wrong)
I don’t think I need to protect myself.
Not really.
I think maybe I mostly need to just not care what you think.
(Easier said than done)
As a human being that has walked through profound personal failure I’d think this would be easier to do or say.
It’s not.
The desire I have to not fail in front of you is robust. It’s the same force that keeps me from acting the fool in strange places and from celebrating wildly with strangers…
I just can’t handle the thought of it all landing wrong.
But there’s a problem with that.
If we aren’t willing to risk being wrong, how can we ever become right?
Imagine for a second a group of toddlers struggling to walk.
Imagine that one sits down, all the other toddlers around him still trying.
Except he points and laughs nastily each time another one falls.
And so another one quits.
And another.
And another.
Pretty soon… they’re all sitting.
Pretty soon… no one tries.
And then when one wobbles up to give it a shot… the full brunt of every eye is on her as she takes her swing.
(Go for it girl… thank God for her)
Every single sitting toddler adding to her… the burden of their own shame. That they know (know) they should be doing the same.
How much harder for her that she would try.
What remarkably increased risk.
And I hope she makes it… but mostly what I hope is that if and when she falls, she gets back up to do it again.
How crushing and sad a story this becomes if it ends with “Eventually she realized she could not do it and sat down.”
“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”1
George Orwell, 1984
No.
Just no.
(Say no)
No.
(No)
If we let the tyranny of the unwilling win, we’re never going anywhere.
We can do better than that.
And please… don’t argue that you or I or we could be wrong. That we cannot be sure. That we need to work just a little bit more towards perfection before we start.
Please do not say, “but who are we?”
Because we have to be willing to be wrong.
Because we have to be willing to fall.
That’s the whole point.
I want to blame someone for my quitting on willingness but I don’t think I can. Not honestly.
I don’t think a group of kids tricked me into it.
I don’t think it was a parental figure.
I don’t think it was culture.
Society.
The state.
Walmart.
Anybody.
…If there’s a wave of social pressure to not look like an idiot it’s been rolling forward since the formation of the world.
It’s no one’s fault.
“Except maybe God,” I think, frustrated with difficulty, with being human, here and now.
And, as I sometimes will, I seem to hear Him whispering back to me a question, as He sometimes will, “What if you have that exactly backwards? What if I helped you at the beginning?”
I think about that and, “You mean when I was learning to walk?”
(Silence)
It’s an interesting question.
What if it wasn’t me? What if I was never so brave? What if that grit and courage I had as a toddler was God’s incredibly helpful hand, helping me with what I needed to - literally - get moving?
Pretty poor character to be mad at Him now for all that help.
“Well then why this God? Why not help us still?”
(Me choosing to be bitter. Petulant. Scared)
And then I hear back, “Who says I won’t? You?”
And that’s another really interesting question.
What if He will?
What if He wants to?
All that was required was to ask him for help, try, and not quit?
What if this is in part what Faith is?
Why are we so sure that the ‘faith of a child’ is some nieve proposition? What if the faith of a child was just as much the faith to fall?
Until muscles quit working or the world ends?
Wouldn’t that be interesting?
(Doesn’t mean it’s true. The burden of a good question is ever to remember it is a question)
How wonderful to think that right next to the ease with which a child can believe …lies this fantastical thing. This equal and opposite. This invitation to live gritty and hopeful lives.2
I’m curious… what could you accomplish if you were willing to fall forward and fail boldly?
What dream would you swing at?
What love would you pursue?
What enterprise would you dare?
What doubt would you express?
What hard thing would you say?
What boundary would you draw?
What if all that is needed is for you to grab it, act on it, and realize… that you had it all along?
What if the only boundary on the edge of who and what you can be… is the willingness in your own heart to look, to be the fool as you take your swing… and call out for the help you need as you go?
What if we were all falling free?
Wouldn’t that be something?
All scripture referenced is NLT unless otherwise noted. I prefer NLT for postural discussion as it is both reasonably rigorous while retaining a conversational tone.
For study I strongly encourage the use of original language tools, multiple translations, and rigorous critical thought.
Please remember that when you read the Bible in English you are always reading someone else’s theological interpretation of the text.
“1984” by George Orwell contains perhaps the most soul crushing line of prose ever written… as the very last line of the book. If the last line of the book of John is the most encouraging and hopeful ending ever written, then in equal and opposite fashion this beautiful and terrifying line in 1984 represents the end of hope in a way few things ever have. I cannot recommend this book to you strongly enough as the questions and dynamics it poses will help inform your own questions forever forward. Really. It’s that good. Thanks George. Buy it here.