Let’s talk about f e a r s—
Everyone has them. At one point, my life was run by them. Unfortunate, I know. A lot of my fears were taken to the extreme. One of my greatest fears in life has been public speaking. I think many of us feel much the same when it comes to speaking in front of large groups. In fact, when I started to look up the most common fears amongst people, public speaking usually came up second or third on the list. Now, if we really examine that fear, we can see it for what it is- a fear of making an absolute fool of ourselves in front of our peers, people who we may or may not even know! And when we dig deeper we realize it comes from caring too much about what this world thinks of us instead of focusing our thoughts and attention on the One who’s opinion matters most. But, we can get to that part another time.
I want to tell you a story about a journey. A journey about faith, trust and comfort zones. A journey about how God can take our greatest fear and mold it into something He can use to further His purpose in this world. This is what He did with mine.
Through middle school and high school I would do just about anything to get out of presenting in front of my class. I would skip days of school and fake illness to go to the nurse. I would even go as far to beg the teacher to allow me to present only to him/her until they would unwillingly relent and all would be well in the world again. Even more, when I was little and “planning my future wedding”, I was only going to allow five people to attend because I was so terrified of standing in front of a church full of people, let alone kissing my husband for all to see! However, running from this fear only made it grow. When I was in front of people I felt like I was being analyzed from every angle. I hated that. I was comfortable with being unseen and unheard. And I was certainly comfortable with anything that didn’t require me to put myself out there.
I let this fear consume me. Just like anything, the more I ran from it, the harder it became. I believe we can all resonate with the feeling of being afraid. There are things that scare us, there are things we don’t want to do and things we feel we never will. I looked at people who could stand up in front of a class, a meeting, a celebration and speak with eloquence, thinking to myself, “I can never do that. That will never be me.” But God had different plans.
I have been told, you should share your experience in life so that it might be of help to someone else. Now that was something I could get down with. In my heart, I had a yearning to help others. And God knew that. He put people in my path that became my mentors. Each time I heard them speak, whether it was at bible study, at church, at a meeting or wherever, a spark was lit inside me. I was still terrified, but I started to feel a tug at my heart, something that told me that spark was about to get bigger. So I prayed. Asking God to help conquer one of my biggest fears was the last thing I thought I would ever pray about because I never thought I would have the desire to conquer it. But believe it or not, God changed my “I can’t do this.” to “I can overcome this.” This required me to trust the Lord wholeheartedly, step out of my comfort zone and have faith that He was going to be right there waiting. I had to believe that He would guide my words; that the same God that told Moses, “Now go; I will help you speak and teach you what to say,” [Exodus 4:12] was going to do just the same for me.
Fast forward to the first time I spoke up at my bible study. I had been going to this bible study for months and never said a word. Numerous times I had felt the Spirit pushing me to speak up, but I was paralyzed by my fear. [emphasis on the paralyzed, its a pretty large group] Then one Friday night, I prayed and told God that tonight was the night I was going to respond to that tug on my heart. But I needed Him there more than ever, present and with me. And let me tell you, He delivered. With heartbeat pounding in my ears so loud I thought the entire room could hear, I stepped out of my comfort zone and into God’s embrace. To my surprise it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Praise Jesus!
I continued to speak up when I felt the familiar tug that told me it was time to step out again. One of the most encouraging things that happened once I trusted God in this, was I began to meet more people, people who were able to speak into this fear I had and share with me their experience in overcoming it. Opportunities started to arise for me to speak at ministry events and at different meetings. All opportunities that God was using to help me to overcome this fear and each opportunity He used to touch someone’s life. I had different people say to me, “You helped me realize…” or “What you said gave me clarity on…” and “You give me hope that I can do it too.” He opened doors for me to share my faith and speak into peoples lives about Jesus. God was molding my fear and using it to bring glory to Him and further His purpose.
But then came the mother of all opportunities.
I remember being told once, “Be careful what you pray for because you just might get it.” A light hearted reminder from a friend that God will answer our prayers. [including public speaking] The phrase really rang true for me recently when I was asked to share a story at the Sunday services in front of my entire church. Two services with between 500 and 600 people in each- cue major panic attack. To say I was nervous would be an understatement! God was really asking me to step out in faith here, I had to ask myself, was I going to FEAR [Forget Everything And Run] or was I going to TRUST [To Rely Upon Sufficient Truth]? The truth was that God had never brought me anywhere and left me to fail. I was going to trust that He was going to carry me through this. I asked my friends to pray for me and I, myself, prayed like I’ve never prayed before. Sitting in the pew before getting up there, I was so nervous I thought I would faint. My heart was working over time, my palms were the definition of clammy, and I was so grateful that I hadn’t had breakfast that morning because my stomach was doing acrobatic flips. The last thing I asked before being called on stage was, “God, give me a spirit of peace.”
I could never have imagined what would happen next. My feet hit the stage and it felt like the whole room slowed down. I look out at all those people and my heart began to beat at a normal rate, my once clammy hands were dry and my mind was at ease. I didn’t look down or have the urge to run. I was overwhelmed with a sense of calmness. God had given me a spirit of peace. I spoke without “Um’s”, without stumbling or stuttering and without loosing my train of thought. It didn’t seem real. For me, what happened was nothing short of a miracle and as I stepped off that stage I was in complete awe. To experience the presence of God and His Spirit through one of my greatest weaknesses was moving to say the least. In and of myself, I cannot speak eloquently, I cannot stand in front of 50 people let alone 500. But God can.
What God is teaching me, and what I believe He wants me to share with you is that, there is no fear too great for Him. He is greater than any number of people, any judgement or criticism. There is nothing in this world that He cannot overcome. He will use our greatest weaknesses in ways we can’t even begin to imagine and He wants to use yours! He says to us, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” [2 Corinthians 12:9] Isn’t that encouraging? Let him use you, let him grab hold of that fear you have and turn it into something beautiful! God is continuing to wreck my fears everyday. Each day I wake up and embark on this journey and you can too. Maybe God is wanting to use your greatest fear but He’s waiting for you to step out of your comfort zone and into faith with Him. A wise person once said, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” We are the ships. God wants to help us grow and our fears hold us back from His purpose. What is holding you back? What do you need to trust God with? There is nothing too big or too great for the God of the universe. Step out of that comfort zone and into His embrace, something great WILL happen.
Love, Michaela
