“Does fear stop me from fully experiencing what The Lord has for me?”
Truthfully, uh yeah it does! But why? I find I am comfortable with myself. I’m a pretty confident gal. But then the word comfort caught me…. Ahh yes of course I cling to comfort. Such a cozy word that draws you in and makes you want to roll up in a ball. It’s like a Venus fly trap. Comfort can be crippling, and I will tell ya why.
Comfort can mask fear, complacency can sneak attack you and all of a sudden you stop taking risk and begin to accept average safety. Barf. That’s scary because for me personally, inaction usually clings to safety. It’s easy to coast through life, and it can be great. But personally, it’s not what I feel called to.
So I have this thing where I can walk into a room and quickly discern the emotional atmosphere. It can be awesome but also intimidating. If people feel awkward I can automatically start feeling awkward. I hate awkwardness! Haha my teammate alway says, “Katy, embrace the awkward”. Ugh do I have to? I rather shy away from it; that’s easy.
Awkwardness is often discomfort. Say if my team wanted to sing worship songs down in the main city center of Macedonia… I automatically feel discomfort because I know it will be awkward. I fear feeling everyone’s discomfort, not actually doing the task, because that’s fun to me.
But then of course The Lord says, “Katy, you see the walls people put up when they’re uncomfortable, why not charge those walls, and be the atmosphere changer I created you to be?” huh what was that Jesus? Hahah
People are uncomfortable to things that are foreign to them. Such as free love, free acceptance, free grace. All concepts that are hard to understand. If my team and I bring those things to the table, an automatic response is to raise up a defense because that’s all they know to do. It makes me sad thinking people’s automatic response to these free gifts is that they have to earn them.
But that’s what’s so legit, we don’t! And we get to storm the walls and embrace the awkward just like Jesus did. He saw past the natural And went for the super natural, spitting in a blind mans eyes, telling fishermen to go back out, having a huge gathering and not having enough food… Oh wait! I bet those were some awkward moments. The disciples were probably cringing but that didn’t result with them staying in their comfortable lives and never taking risk.
So I’m learning to embrace the awkward like Jesus: To get out of my comfortable bubble of safety and take risk by storming the walls. Even if I feel everyone’s awkward responses, I’ll use that as a motivator to change that response however it may look! Jesus is the creative one. Haha hopefully if I spit in someone’s eyes I won’t get a black one in return! Haha even though secretly I’ve also wanted a black eye… See positives people!
I don’t want to miss out on the opportunities God gives me in my everyday. Do you? Because he has big plans for all of us, and they all look different.
