If I were to title this blog post, I’d use this title (which is also good advice):
Truly, do this!
Fear has value.
I know it does!
I’ve seen fear work to my benefit.
Example.
Every time I stand up to speak, I still feel the effects of nervousness, anxiety, fear.
Every time!
Every time, I still ask all the what if questions:
- What if I’m not prepared enough?
- What if I forget what I came to say?
- What if they hate me? (Thank God, we are way past throwing rotten tomatoes at speakers we hate!)
- What if I pass out?
- What if I’m un-relatable?
- Worse yet, what if I’m a total failure? Not so much to man, but in what I’m offering the Lord?
Every time, I have to look fear in the face and stare it down with the Lord’s help, a sling of faith, and a stone of truth.
EVERY! SINGLE! TIME!
Dealing with fear has a kind of “pre-game-warm-up-feel” to it.
I remember the moment I realized it.
I was sitting in the midst of a timed 20-minute personal sanctuary in a corner, face to the wall (I must have looked like I’d been put in time-out, and in a sense, I had been).
There I was all alone, in a room full of other women, doing the exact same thing.
As I prayed, this thought popped into my head, as if it was the Lord speaking:
God to me: OK! Let’s do this. Let’s get through this little ritual, so we can do what we came here to do.
“This little ritual?”
Really?
Yet, as I pondered it, I realized.
I do this.
I struggle.
I fret.
I let anxiety freeze my heart, as if Elsa (in Frozen 1) had just walked into the room “Let(ting) It Go!”
Then, I’m driven to solitude…and to HIM…
I go straight for His heart.
And He brings the manna my soul needs to feel sustained for the moment.
Something fresh.
A word.
A picture.
A verse.
A reminder.
And, in this pressing little ritual, comes new wine for what is in front of me.
A fresh anointing.
Clarity of mind.
And, I realize:
I will never be unafraid.
I will never be what or who I am not.
But I can be who I’m made to be…
Doing what I am being empowered to do;
Because He is holding my fearful heart…
Granting courage.
Yes. For that reason, I have made friends with fear.
It keeps me compassionate.
It keeps me sharp.
It keeps me dependent.
It refuels me.
It becomes for me a stone of remembrance.
I place it with other stones…
Ebenezer’s from other times, when I have felt the same, and the Lord has come through…
Anointing afresh.
Doing what He does best.
All I have to do is show up.
Be available.
Hineni – Here I am, use me!
Make friends with your fear…it can do the same for you!
Your fear may look different than mine; but, all fear feels the same.
Use fear to lean more closely into your Lord; to deepen your faith; to exchange what is flooding your heart with what has filled His; and then let that flow out to your world.
#bebrave….but only because you have gone through the pre-game, and, embraced a new friendship with fear!
