It started out as any other fear. A basic fear that I didn’t realize affected more areas of my life than one.
Right off the bat, during month one, my fear for literal deep, unknown waters stood in front of me. I found myself crying in the middle of open waters while holding on for dear life to a raft. There was a depth there that was so unknown to me, something that stirred up fear within me. That fear of deep waters only progressed as I found myself in far too many similar situations.
I remember the moment I was called to missions. It was at a conference my junior year of college. The song Oceans was playing and the words that the Lord spoke so clearly to me were, You called me out upon the waters…take me deeper than my feet could ever wander.
Reflecting back on where the Lord has taken me since that moment, He has done exactly that. He has taken me to deep waters. He has called me to live a radical, unknown life for him around the world, where I have experienced things I’d never experienced before- rejoicing in new ways, loving with a new heart, weeping for the brokenness around the world, and experiencing a depth that I thought could never be reached.
At the start of the race, I knew there was a depth that I was missing, there was something more that I wasn’t allowing myself to fully walk in yet, because I actually feared the Lord’s power and what he would do if I asked. I told God that I would do things with him as long as I could see the bottom, or as long as he would provide a boat. I said, I will…as long as… Oh how little faith I had and what great adventures the Lord had coming my way.
On the race, He began revealing these fears to me through putting me in situations where there was nothing but dark, deep waters that I had to submerge myself in in order to begin to trust Him. Little by little, after each experience, he released me from a part of my fear, showing me the freedom that He has underneath.
In Uganda, fear took me into the middle of the Nile River, where I felt swallowed by rapid waves. In Thailand, it took me into the middle of the ocean with only a life jacket and goggles, and it took me standing completely engulfed underneath a waterfall. It took me cliff jumping into dark, muggy waters in Honduras. Fear took me swimming through canyons in Nicaragua.
Christine Cain says it best, “When you let fear run your life, you close yourself off from anything that might hurt or cost or make you uncomfortable- including opportunities to serve God and claim his promises.”
God didn’t ask me to go after he made it completely safe or after he took all my fears away. He asked me to go even if it was scary, even if I was uncertain, because He told me 350 times in his Word to fear not.
God called me into deep waters time and time again, month after month, to experience an even deeper understanding of who He is and daring me to go where he is calling me to go. He showed me that courage is not the absence of fear- it’s fearing what He is asking me to do, but doing it anyways.
In 2 Timothy 1:7 it says “He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” God wanted me to replace my fear, that He did not give me, with what he did give me, which is love, power, and a sound mind.
It took facing my fears, to unlock and open a gate of the depth with God that I was once unknowingly terrified of. If I had just coasted on top of his waters, I’d only be an acquaintance of God. But he has not only taken me to the surface, but to the middle of the waters and to the depths of his waters, creating an intimacy with him that I would have never found if I stayed stuck in my fear, above the waters. He has prepared me to serve him without fear, even if that means going back to the Nile River.
