Why I Said Goodbye to Fear and Chose Desire

One of the greatest convictions in my life is that I've lived much of my life making decisions out of fear.

This is something I have really been seeing in my life lately. Not saying it is a new thing, simply that my eyes are being opened. It's a process I have been on for over a year but has really been being made clear to me in the last couple of months.

About a year ago I was working nearly 50 hours a week at a job and making decent money for a small town job. For the first time since I've been married we were making more than what we needed to pay the bills and live life. Not only that, I also had full benefits. This is the point where many Americans would say "I'm set!".

But after the initial couple weeks of euphoria that comes from feeling promoted in life, it all started to become a major grind. I was going home every day exhausted both mentally and physically. I was financially "secure" but this job also was stagnant. I had already reached the top of the promotional ladder (it was a short ladder...). Before long I had mastered the aspects of the job to the point where I wasn't challenged more. I also was not moving forward in anything I wanted to do in my life long-term. The job was taking care of my financial needs but was a flat-line for every other thing I wanted in my life.

At this point I began to struggle. I really wasn't in a good place. While it was so nice to be able to not live in the red I was also not growing in all the ways I need to be growing. Feeling stuck I would take it to God in my prayer times, often weeping from frustration and confusion. That's when He first challenged me. I heard it clear as day, "what are you so afraid of?" And suddenly I knew in my heart that I was putting my faith in my job. After talking it through with my wife we decided that we would go part-time, freeing up the time I needed to pursue the other things in life I felt I needed to pursue. Namely, ministry. The thing that made my heart come alive.

This was a big risk, but looking back, not as big as I thought at the time. I continued to work and slowly moved forward in my other endeavors. Eventually I was even blessed to get more part-time work, this time at our church. Doors were opening!

God is so good and so patient. The season of me working two part-time jobs lasted 5 months, and once again we were blessed in a "secure" way. I had even begun to find new challenges at my first job which allowed me to grow.

But it didn't last long. During this season I was basically waiting for a full-time position in ministry to open up. I was waiting for another job. The idea had always been to phase out of the old job into a new one, but with the new one never opening up I was finding myself, once again, stuck. Through all of this I felt the frustration growing again. I mean, what's a guy to do right?

Again I started taking it to prayer. "Why God?"

Again I heard, "What are you so afraid of?"

Well now I was a little stumped, because I really believed I had taken a step of faith. But as soon as He said that I started to see myself and the past year differently. I had once again slipped into putting my faith into my next job. I had started working toward that instead of working on what God had put in my heart.

I wrote a couple weeks ago a blog about my season where God had been inviting me to "Be the best YOU, you can be." I'm still in that season. What I didn't write about is that a huge part of this season, about being the best ME, is about overcoming fear. Fear of risk, fear of failure.

Last year, when I went part-time, God had really been inviting me to take a risk on myself and go all in. I know this because I flirted with it big-time before reaching the compromise of going part-time. But that compromise came from me. It was because I wasn't ready. So God, who is infinitely patient (even though if I were Him I would be going nuts watching me run around sometimes!), blessed me in my choice. He opened up new doors and took good care of me and my family. He always knew that it was only a matter of time before I couldn't take it anymore.

When I came back to Him in frustration again, He pitched the same question to me, "what are you so afraid of?" And this time I was more ready to take the leap.

Over the past year I have been studying all the people I want to be more like. I have been studying the successful people of history who have changed the world. I have been studying the successful people of today who are influential and often wealthy. Two things they all have in common is that they all took risks and they all believed in the desire that was in their heart. All of them, every single one.

In America the vast majority of us are raised to believe we need to stick it out, always, no matter what we are going through. We are taught that security is the best indicator of success. This is why we keep growing government. Even the most conservative people get ticked about social security if it is threatened (sorry my conservative friends, but social security IS a welfare program). We are taught to go after "safe" jobs that offer good benefits and aren't going anywhere. Once you get that job, hang on for dear life, even if you hate it. Because someday you'll get to live when you get retirement!

This is not what world-changers do, and it is not what the Bible teaches us either. I'm firmly convinced that God has put something in all of us to do and become, and our cultural saturation of seeking out the "safe" is one of the greatest hindrances to us accomplishing those things. It is why so many of us, myself included, go through many seasons of frustration and ultimately discouragement. We are living in the tug-of-war of what we were created to do and what the world tells us we should do. When we go with the worldly wisdom we will never find contentment. The reason is because all that worldly wisdom is rooted in fear.

My confession is that I have been living in search of security for some time now. I have been living out of fear. Putting my faith in a "maybe" job instead of in the God who made me and is wanting me to go after who He made me to be. I'm starting to see that the reason God hasn't given me that job I felt I so desperately wanted is because I've been going after it for the wrong reasons. I've been going after it because I wanted a steady paycheck doing what I wanted. That's the dream isn't it? Well no, not if the paycheck is the first reason you're going after it. And I confess, it has been for me. I'm just now starting to realize that.

So after the last time God challenged me I got it. Finally. He is challenging me to invest in myself and to trust in Him for the provision. Through all these years He has been building me up and now He's challenging me to give back to the world all that's been put in me. In doing that the finances will come, one way or the other. He's challenging me to believe I am worth it. Because He MADE me worth it. He made me and put desires in my heart, and He WANTS me to succeed in those desires. It's the whole point of my existence. Who am I to doubt Him? Why am I so afraid to trust Him?

Some of us were made to be teachers. Some of us were made to be engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc... Name almost any job and someone absolutely loves doing it. Then there's the less glamorous jobs, things like flipping burgers or running a cash drawer. I've worked those jobs, and I'm glad I did. I learned much about life and myself while doing them. Some jobs are what we're made to do, and some jobs are meant to be stepping stones of training for bigger things in life. They all have their purpose. What most of us have missed, myself included, is that there comes a point where we are trained and ready to do the thing that's in our hearts. Where we need to take a risk and believe that it will work out.

In other words, there comes a time when we need to quit what we're doing and go after the thing that makes us come alive. When it's time to boot "security" out the window and pursue our dreams. The "realism" or "rationalism" that convinces us to never do this is really just fear. It's a fear that God is not who He said He is and a fear that we are not who God says we are.

The proof is in the putting, and as I've studied the most successful, influential people I've found that they all got this. Even those that don't know God just woke up one morning and decided that the thing they wanted was worth all the risk. And though most of them failed time and again, they didn't give up, and now they are the ones we write books about or look up to. A person who is living out who they are is always going to be the best and most inspirational at what they do, whatever it is. It's because they were made to be it and they get to work out of who they are instead of who they aren't.

All of this comes to the conclusion that I'm done with fear. I put in my notice at my work just a couple days after I felt God challenging me (I always recommend taking at least a couple of days to process the big things God gives you!), and now I'm just at the church one day a week. But I'm no longer there just hoping for a promotion, I'm there because i love it. And every other day during the week I am working on my writing and other aspects of what I believe is going to be a ministry. Something I can do with my wife and others who share the vision. I am choosing desire, I am choosing passion, and every day I find myself growing more and more excited about what is ahead! I have more peace and fulfillment at this point in my new season than I can ever remember having in my work. Something good is happening, and it's coming because I am finally learning to believe who God says He is and who He says I am.

I don't know what the future holds but for the first time I can remember I feel as if I'm really all in toward what God has made me for. Someday I might get full-time at a local church, someday I might find that my own ministry is taking care of the finances, or for a time I might find that I need to go through a "tent-maker" season like the Apostle Paul did, where I have to work part-time in business again in order to pay the bills and to fund my ministry. Yet even if I have to do that again, I know it will only be for a season. We live in the most opportune time in history, where one good YouTube video or blog can make anyone influential overnight. We have less excuse than any other people in history when it comes to pursuing our dreams. We only need to overcome our fear.

 I don't know what the future holds. But for the first time in my life, I'm not working from fear, I'm not working out of a desire for "security", but I'm working from passion. It's one of the best decisions I've ever made. I'm finding what I believe all those successful, influential people in history found. That living from passion is truly living. It makes all the failures worth it and all the unknowing easily bearable.

We all are in different seasons. Some of us are discovering ourselves, some of us are training for the future. But some of us know what makes us come alive and have been avoiding it for a long time because we are afraid of failing. I am not successful yet in my endeavor by any means. I have just started. However I still want to encourage you. You can do it. You have things in your heart that are there for a reason. You were made for more than just paying the bills. Whatever it looks like, go after that thing. Quit the things that are holding you back. It might be a little scary, but you'll never feel more alive.

God made you for a reason. Will we trust that He knows better than we do?

Connect and Release (The answer you've been looking for)

One of them, an expert in the Law, tested Him with this question:
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.  - Matthew 22:35-40

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." - John 13:34-35

agape- self-sacrificing, universal, unconditional love


God keeps it so simple, doesn't He? We are the ones who like to screw it up by thinking too much. We just can't seem to be ok with the fact that God is so kind and free with us. We westerners, children of Greek philosophy and rational thought, want so badly to figure it all out. We want so badly to have a graph of dos and don'ts. We feel as if we could solve all the world's problems if we could just communicate the truth in the right words!

I imagine God just smiles and shakes His head at how silly we get sometimes trying to figure it all out.

I know from experience just how frustrating it can be. At about age 20 I set out on a mission to get it all figured out! I was devouring deep theological books from people whom are so smart one can barely understand their writing. I would read over and over again until things started to make sense. Then I would turn around and dissect every bit of scripture. I was going to know the Word, dangit! And I did. Within a few years I became about as good a theologian as any young man could be. I had answers for everyone's questions. Even if I didn't know the answer I was excellent at rationalizing one from what I DID know. I was asked to teach often. I started to get a lot of influence.

And yet I was missing so much.

You see there was something I was overlooking in this whole pursuit of knowledge thing I had going on. I was missing God. No, I'm not saying that I ignored Him or stopped believing in Him, nothing like that. I simply was doing all my studying on my own. I was doing it all in my own power and understanding. I was using rational thought and manly wisdom, all my schooling and learnedness, to try and understand Godly wisdom.

Now doesn't that sound stupid?

Sorry to break it to you, but in some way, shape or form we've all been guilty of this. Some much more so than others.

But the Bible, ironically, was never meant to be picked apart by human minds. A book we Christians all agree was written by divine inspiration is a book we don't try to understand by divine intervention. Ouch.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. - 1 Corinthians 1:25

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. - Proverbs 3:5

The Bible is full, beginning to end, with Godly wisdom, and yet we try to understand it through human wisdom. Anytime we enter into our study without consulting Him, without inviting Him to speak to us as we go through it, we are missing something. Yet that is exactly what most of the church is doing.

The result of this is a western church that has slowly and steadily been losing its influence on culture for years now. Culture grows more decadent, the church responds with more harshness and judgment, leaning on the Word of God without the love it is meant to be communicated from. We have chosen the letter of the Law over the Spirit of the Law. And we all know that that kills.

So back to the beginning. Where Jesus gives us so much wisdom and insight into it all in a couple sentences that it drives our rational minds crazy! It can't be that simple?! Can it?

It's all about love. Not just nice thoughts or affection. It's all about agape love. It's about loving everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) with sold out, unconditional, sacrificial love. It means we are to read the Bible and understand the words of it through the lens of that love. When we read something in the Old Testament that seems crazy and harsh we first need to think, "How can I understand this through Love?" When we read Paul talking about discipline we need to filter that with "How does fit into the context of Love?"

And to do that is impossible. Which is why we need God to do it for us. I don't even read the Bible for study anymore unless I have taken at least a few moments to connect with God's heart first. Why? Because I cannot afford to miss what He's saying! I can't waste any more time. I've wasted so much!

When we do this, everything changes. Revelation starts flowing. Suddenly scripture leaps off the page to us. Things start to open up to us which our hardened hearts and rational minds hid from us before. Soon we don't just understand truth but we understand TRUTH. And there is a huge difference.

Before Jesus it all came down to love. How much love could we muster on our own for God and for one another? God only asked for everything. It was the only way to keep the Law. And since man couldn't partner with God from the inside out, it was impossible.

But then Jesus did come, and right before He goes to His death He ups the ante and says, "Now love one another, as I have loved you!" 

We're no longer excused to love in our own strength. We must love as God loves. It's so important that it's the only command Jesus gives His followers! Why? Because it literally covers everything.

It's so simple! Yet so impossible to understand on our own.

But Jesus knew, He knew that if we obeyed His command it would force us to come in line to everything else. Why? Because we can't obey this command without relationship with God. It's impossible. We need Him in us, we need Him working through us. In order to love one another as Jesus loved us we can't disconnect from Him. We must love Him and stay in Him. As we do that we change. Sin simply leaves us. When we are connected to Him we have no desire to sin. When we are connected to Him He opens our eyes and hearts to how He sees others. When we are connected to Him He purifies our desires to line up with His. It is literally the answer to every question anyone has ever asked about "what does God want me to do? What is His will for me? How do I understand this? How do I approach others? How do I deal with this situation?"

I'll tell you how. Connect and then release!

I know, it's almost so simple it's stupid! Trust me, I wouldn't be sharing it if I hadn't found out by trying to live it out that it is true! For it's when I connect and release, when I let Him be the filter, when I walk in the supernatural love that only He can give me, it really all does get easier. I love in ways I never could have before. I have confidence I never would have before. I understand more than I ever would have before.

Grasping this changes everything. EVERYTHING! Suddenly you're not worried about the sins of others, or about the next President, or about judgment on America. You're not worried about that new job you need or the bills you are going to pay. You're not worried because you have the answer. It's in you, it's Him!

Suddenly you understand when Paul writes, "God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance." - Romans 2:4b. You understand because you know that if you could just get someone to MEET Jesus, they will WANT to change! That pressure to condemn them, to judge them, to try to advise them OUT of their sin will go away. You'll just want to love them so stupidly and overwhelmingly so that they will say, "how could someone do this?" and you'll say "Jesus!" and they will rush to meet Him. After all, that's how Jesus did ministry!

This is what changed everything for me. And as I get better in walking it out I find that I am finally becoming the person I always wanted to be. Everytime I connect with Him and live through that connection another rough edge gets shaved down. Another positive change is made. Temptation gets easier and easier to overcome. Generosity comes easier. Harshness leaves. Fear disappears. Love just flows! And the crazy thing is, He makes it so easy! I no longer have to focus on all those things on their own. I just connect with Him, and in His loving comfort and gentle direction and supernatural power I start to change. And all those things that seemed so hard before I connected get so much easier.

It's all there. It's our starting point to how we need to live to fully live. It's where we must begin if we are really going to change our own lives and then the world around us. Connect and release. Love out of HIS strength. As the church grasps this, (and the good news is, it IS beginning to grasp it!) everything changes. Revival starts, and it never ends.

Now go get started!

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." - John 13:34-35

Be the Best YOU, You Can Be

What do we have inside us that we have drowned out or ignored for some time?

A few months ago my wife pushed me to teach a class at our local homeschool co-op. For those who don't know (normal people, I'd gather... just kidding), a homeschool co-op is where the parents of local homeschooled children get together to teach classes. Some co-ops are more focused on strict academics, some are more open to elective-style classes to broaden the kids horizons. The idea is that a parent who is gifted at teaching math, or spanish, or sign-language can have the opportunity of teaching other kids whose parents might not be as good at teaching that subject. It's a pretty cool deal, actually.

The co-op we are a part of is the more elective-style kind of co-op. And one thing it always needs is teachers. My wife, who apparently believes in me very much (love you babe!), really wanted me to fill one of those needs this last semester. Now I like to teach things but I was still apprehensive. I couldn't think of anything I'd want to teach teenagers that would take 9 weeks. So I offered her a "maybe, I'll think about it" and figured it would go away.

A couple months went by and I figured I was safe, until one day my wife announces "by the way, you need to submit the class you are going to teach. They need to know in order to post it." Apparently when I had said "maybe" my wife had heard "I'm in!". So now, on the spot, I was forced to come up with a class.

Digging deep, I decided to teach the kids about something I had been interested in for a long time: film. When I was a teen I had developed a deep love for the movies. For a while my love was borderline obsessive. To the point where I got my first job at a movie theater (free movies!) and later worked for two years as a film critic. I really, REALLY love movies. I love the adventures they take me on, the laughs they give me, the emotions they make me feel, the characters they get me to care for, and the ideas they make me think about.

The nice thing about loving something so much is that you tend to learn about it, and I started to get really excited about learning more and teaching the kids as I did so. Also, it now gave me an excuse to watch more movies too (bonus!). The first class came and went, and I took to it like a fly to... well, you know. It was really a lot of fun and the 9 weeks flashed by.

But something else happened during that period of teaching the class. Something in me came back to life. It's an almost impossible feeling to describe, but sometimes there is something in us that we have kind of "moved on" from. While I never had stopped enjoying movies, I had subdued that love for a long time. In trying to be more responsible and grown up I had, rightly so, cut back on my time spent on my beloved hobby. But I also, wrongly so, suffocated the passion for it. In that I had turned my back on things I loved which were connected to that hobby. Things like spreading the appreciation of the art form and even making some of my own videos. In short, in trying to healthily cutback I unhealthily also almost killed off one of my productive passions. Something that made me come alive.

As I was spending some quiet time with God one day in the middle of the semester I was asking Him, "what do you want from me? What do you want me to do?" In my search for direction I heard as clear as day "Be the best YOU that you can be." As He said that I was taken back to memories of myself as a young twenty-something. The time when I was really pursuing things that made me come alive. I was a lot more foolish back then, but I was also more fearless and passionate. As I was seeing this I felt a stirring inside me. I knew that God was showing me something I had left behind and that He was giving me permission to bring it back. To take all the things I have grown in and matured in, but to learn to still be that passionate, fearless youth.

Looking back now I know exactly why God brought that class to me. He knew it would lead me to rediscover an old passion. He knew that it would bring back to life a part of me that I hadn't let fully live in a long time.

"Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." - Psalm 37:4

Religion wants us to believe that all desires are bad, but God knows that as we pursue Him our desires get purified. We learn how to pursue them through the lens of holiness. When we give them to Him He loves to give them back. Things I love that would be considered "secular" are things that God is showing me He loves about me. He loves that I love film. He loves that I love sports. There are things that those and others bring out of me that He has designed. When I am most alive I am also doing the most for the Kingdom. There is something in loving films that makes me a better version of myself. I don't know what it is, but He does.

"Be the best YOU, you can be."

This is not about finding all the areas we are falling short in and correcting them. This is about discovering what God has put in us that makes us come alive. Religion wants us to focus on the negative, and as a result we get stuck. God wants to open us up to the beautiful things in us. To the passions and dreams He placed in us. The things that make you YOU. You are not your failures or your sins, you are the GOOD creation God has made you. You are His child. It is only by making that aspect of ourselves our focus that we can grow in influence and excellence and overcome our weaknesses.

God made us all different for a reason. We are all different parts of the same body. We all have something unique to contribute, but we cannot give the most if we are not living our fullest. What is it that you love? That makes you come alive? What makes you dream? What fills your passion? God is re-awakening those things within us. He wants a church of excellence, a church of influence and passion. For too long most of us have been trying to become what the world, what religion has tried to tell us to be. But deep inside, we know what really inspires us, what really makes us come alive.

I'm still figuring out what that looks like for me. But every day I'm coming a little bit more alive. Every day I'm finding more peace and joy in who I am because of Him. Every day I'm learning more how good He is, and how much He loves me and is pleased with me. That pleasure only grows as I go on the journey with Him of finding who I really am. He is teaching me how to be more alive.

"Be the best YOU, you can be."

You have permission, now go do it.