The Fear of Being Found Out
This was such an eye opening chapter, Angie beckoned us to look at the woman who reached out and touched Jesus' hem to be healed. She was willing to be known, to bare her shame, for Jesus to know who she was in order to be healed. At first she didn't realize that Jesus would even call out to her, she just wanted to touch his hem, believing that just touching a piece of His clothing would heal her, but then he called out to her, revealing her to the crowd. Isn't this what we all fear at some point, that we will be found out? That we have something to hide, something that we don't want others to know or see...we aren't always perfect, our house and kids and relationships aren't always in order, we have a past we don't want anyone to know, fears and worries we don't want to reveal to the world. However, Angie says something quite profound...
I think one of the reasons we, as Christians, fear baring our souls to each other is that we know the person may try to play God instead of trying to love us the way God commands. Another fear we have is that we will let people down and we won't meet their expectation of us. The labels we create (and dwell on) for each other are killing our chance for genuine community, and we are missing the best part of each other.
We are so concerned with what others think of us we are missing the point. God knows us, He knows who we are, He wants us to wrestle with Him just like Jacob did, He wants us to refuse to let go. He gives us a new name and He longs for us to faith like the woman her touched his robe (Mark 5:34)
He is here and He is able to heal you and give you a new name!
The Fear of Failure
I really do love how Angie gives a biblical reference to all of our fears. She gives people just like us that struggled with the very same things. In this particular chapter we look at Gideon in Judges 6. God had called Gideon to lead the Israelites into battle against the Midianites, but Gideon didn't believe he was a warrior. He automatically believed he would fail, but didn't God specifically call him?
Sometimes the fear of failure steals the beauty we were meant to create. Here's the part we need to cling to: If what we are being called to do is in God's will for us, we truly can't fail. To us failure means it doesn't turn out the way we want it to, To God it means we didn't try. You will fail by being disobedient, not by lack of success at the task.
God has a call on all of us, He called Moses to be his mouthpiece to Pharaoh in freeing the Israelites and Moses didn't believe he had what it took to speak, he wasn't eloquent. He questioned God's plan just like Gideon. Through these 2 men, we see that God doesn't like it when we question His plan, his response to Moses is very straightforward, "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be your mouth and teach you what you shall speak." (Exodus 4:11-12) We all have things we feel insecure about, we fear we will not be equipped to do what God asks of us, we fear we won't be the kind of wife, mom, friend, leader God has called us to be. We must change our view of failure, God wants us to respond to Him, to pursue Him, to obey and if we do that we will never fail.
What I saw as a character flaw, God saw as potential.
What I perceived as weakness was going to be my glory-gift.
What I was sure was failure was actually the heart of my success.
In each day the Lord gives us, let us become consumed with the obedient pursuit instead of the perceived victory. Let us see ourselves how you see us because you call us just as you called Moses and Gideon. God, remind us daily that You are the only way to true success, and our failures happen when we lose sight of this.
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