My Chaco’s spoke to me. Or maybe it’s more that the Lord spoke through them.
Aside from my squad and I being on the race to do ministry and pour into others, we have also been called to love each other deeply and pour into one another in the good times and the bad. In this past month this has looked like sharing all of my space and all of my time with 7 women that I barely knew. It’s kind of like MTV’s Real World but with Jesus.
Long story short, this is been a wildly refining process and God has shown me how much I struggle with a Fear of Man. I fear if people will like me, if they will judge me, if I will offend them, if they think I’m funny, and the list goes on and on.
“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?” – Galatians 1:10
During worship with my entire squad in one of my last nights in Colombia I took my Chaco’s off (something I never do- I’m a big believer in shoes). I then stood up on a bench with my Chaco’s on the floor beneath me. All throughout worship I was meditating on the fact that God loves and approves me just as I am and that I can be confident and bold in truth.
I looked down from the bench at my Chaco’s and God said to me, “These are your Fear of Man”. They were real and valid and right there in front of me. They were sitting at my feet waiting for me to put them on.
But in order for them work, I had to get down off the bench, stop my worship with God, and put them on. I had to make them move and allow them to become the new foundation in which I would stand on. Without me choosing to walk in them, they could never come up and put themselves on my feet, and they could never bring me down.
I have a choice in the matter.
When I live in the Fear of Man, I decide that I am going to let it control my thoughts, my actions, my words. When I make that choice to put on that insecurity, I break my relationship with God and I stop worshipping Him. It’s not that the Fear of Man doesn’t exist because I can say with confidence that it is real.
But it can never control my life if my eyes are lifted up to Christ and I never put it on.
If any of you relate to the need for approval from others, living in fear, needing to be liked, keeping truth in to not offend, being scared of what others think, I promise you there is freedom in the approval of God.
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” –John 8:36
You are magnificently loved,
Sara
**I would like to point out that I absolutely love my Chaco’s and I in no way hold anything against them after this revelation from God.
