on avoiding risk, failure, we are inhibited and do not perform optimally. Pride, not humility. Momentarily-humble Christians do not fear failure, but learn from failure, and therefore perform optimally -- with reckless abandon. A Jesus-dependent athlete has a big advantage over a human-wisdom-dependent athlete. How can a human-wisdom-dependent Christian become more Jesus-dependent? Only by the Spirit freshly convicting of the sin of human-wisdom-dependency, so the believer is momentarily humble, performing optimally. All credit to Jesus, none to the individual Christian. Problem is, with the success that comes from performing optimally, comes the temptation to MAINTAIN the success, avoiding failure. Feeling great pressure to PRODUCE -- trying way-too hard. Batting/pitching/fielding slump in baseball. Golfing slump. Financial slump in investing. Momentarily-humble athletes are the envy of their peers, but have to deal with the pressure of elevated expectations of themselves, and others, tempting them to be freshly UNwilling to fail. That's when Christians need unusual self-awareness, AND fresh conviction of pride, by the Spirit, to realize what's going on inside them, so they can CONFESS, and be freshly DEAD to their agenda. Ahhh. -- Dave McCarty, GospelFriendships, preachin to himself, cuz he forgets To receive my Tuesday posts, email me, or subscribe to my blog: dumbsheepdave.com