Today is February 14th. Not only is that, yes Valentine’s Day, but for me this day means a half-way point for the World Race. The amount of time that I have completed on the Race is exactly the amount I have left. Time is flying by.
One thing that World Race has allowed me to learn is that perfect love casts out fear. Fear is one thing that I have allowed to cripple me in my past. It’s why I haven’t committed to a career or life path. I feared something better would come up or that I would realize that I made a mistake and that now I am not capable of completely the task that I dived into. I feared my own weakness without looking at my strengths. I feared my ability to ruin the things that I was also capable of starting.
Before I left I got a tattoo on my wrist that says, “be brave.” I knew that fear was something that had held me back a lot in my past and wanted to remind myself that being brave was something I wanted this year to look like. I didn’t really realize though how much this fear had held me back.
I don’t know if you guys read my blog post about jumping of a bridge in Month 4 but you can read it here. That was a defining moment for me. A moment that I realized that fear really does cripple us from doing things we are meant to do. Not that I was meant to jump off the bridge because my dad would clearly say otherwise, but I did learn how quickly I allow fear to take control.
Many times we find ourselves not doing anything because we are afraid that when we do something we will do the wrong thing. I have found the art of appearing that I am doing something to distract myself from the real thing that I fear. What I fear is commitment. I fear that if I commit to something, like a non-profit organization and then I realize I am incapable or it is not really something I want to do that I will be stuck and miserable… forever. (dramatic I know, but really this is the lies I tell myself) I tell myself, “you do not have direction,” or “you don’t have a specific passion.” “You care about too many things, you aren’t able to focus on just one.” These things are so present in my mind that they have steered the last four years of my life in trying to find THAT ONE passion. They led me to the Race because I believed that I still didn’t know exactly what “it” was. I didn’t want to commit because “what if” it wasn’t the right choice.
In a book I am reading right now Steven Furnick puts it in this way, “the world of what-ifs is a black hole, and it will suck your joy, peace, and hope into its vortex if you venture near its vicinity.” Oh the truth in that statement. I have been finding out on this Race specifically that my hope, peace and joy in what I was passionate about was sucked dry because I lived in fear that it wasn’t the right passion. I believe that God gives us passions, desires and gifting’s to see things that others might not because he wants us to walk into that. He wants us to be his hands and feet in that specific passion. He wants us to do something about it. But instead I thought maybe I still hadn’t found the right one because not everyone was jumping on that bandwagon… again, fear.
The biggest accomplishment I have had in these past five and a half months is that I am finally confident in the passions that God has given me already to fully dive into them. I am confident more than ever that God is in the things that set my heart on fire for him. I am confident more than ever in the person I am and the strengths that God has given me in order to carry out the work that he has called me to. I have this journey to thank for that. Every person I have met locally in a country or the blessings of my teammates has allowed this to be made apparent to me. Fear will no longer captivate me. It will only be used as a driver. Being fearless is impossible. That’s not the point. The point is to combat the lies and fear with truth and brave steps. I want to still fear the great things that God can do through little ‘ol me, but I want to be able to think clearly through that fear.
It took half the Race to teach me that I am who God created me to be including the passions tucked in my heart and that with his help I can step into all that he has for me in my future. I cannot wait to see what God has for the second half of my Race.
“The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread free artist.”-Steve Pressfield
