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?
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