Is fear paralyzing me from what God has for me?

I want to a small groups conference in Chicago at Willowcreek back in October. There were several w0nderful speakers, but one in particular hit home with me. His name is Erwin McManus and he is the pastor of a congregation in CA called Mosaic (cool name for a church, huh?) Well, he is now my new favorite author! I bought his book Chasing Daylight while we were at the conference, and it has blown me away! I love his take on things. So the quotes in this post are from this book...I HIGHLY encourage you to pick up a copy and read it! Especially if you feel fear is keeping you from God's best!

The whole book is based on what McManus calls the Jonathan factor. He basis it on the story of Jonathan when he takes his armor-bearer and just the two of them go up against the Philistines by themselves because he takes a risk and believes God's promise to give them the land.

McManus says, "To the best of my understanding, faith is trusting God enough to obey what He has said, and hope is having the confidence that God will do everthying He has promised. One pushes you; the other pulls you. They lead you into the wonder of experiencing divine moments. But without question, in between faith and hope, there is risk."

I LOVE that! See, I grew up in a home where you don't take risks...period! If you don't know the outcome will be good, then you don't do it. Now, I grew up in a Christian home with wonderful parents. But they are very legalistic! They do not have a concept of blind faith. This thought process has definitly impacted my adulthood. I am just now understanding what it means to walk by faith and not by sight, and frankly, it scares the holy cow out of me!

But as I hear God calling me to things like processing adoptions out of Liberia, there are HUGE risks! I believe so many times we as Christians want the big miracles and the power of God in our lives, but we are not willing to take the risks to get there! God is teaching me to take the risks! We want to stay in our comfortable lives and just exist with God showing up now and then to work a miracle and fix an uncomfortable situation. We are not willing to hand our lives to Him and say, whatever, wherever, whenever! We are not willing to start the journey without knowing the ending! That is not how God operates....frankly that is not faith!

McManus talks more about that: "Life is full of high boards [he is refering to an experience when he was a child of being scared to jump off the hight diving board], the place we stand where we realize that the altitude is higher than we expected. The place where there is no neutral - we either go forward or go backward. Many times this becomes the dividing line, the line that separates those who see their divine opportunity and those who seize their divine opportunity." I see that as where I am in my life! God is calling me to obedience in many areas. He is asking me to walk on the water. I can sit in the boat and lead a more comfortable life, or I can get up at 5 in the morning to make sure I have plenty of time to spend with Him and exercise before my family wakes up, I can close the agency, or I can receive calls at 4 in the morning or on Christmas Eve to talk about papers that need to be processed for children in need of a family. I can say I am finished and quit, or I can continue to move forward even when papers come back with wrong names, or I hit wall after wall when trying to get answers from government agencies in order to do things correctly. (You have to love it when the government doesn't have answers to their own policies and regulations!) I may not always have the answers, but neither did Jonathan, "what we find in Jonathan's plan is not a shrewdly laid-out war plan. He was a servant who was convinced that God was more than ready to act."

I have referenced many times that I feel this is the year that I will leave the wilderness (a wilderness that I have been in because God has been growing me, but also because I was unwilling to walk in obedience in some areas). So I loved when McManus said, "Their journey stretched to forty years as a result of the wrong choices they made while they wandered in the wilderness. God's calling and promise to them were clear, yet their response shaped how the journey played out." As I think about the promise land that lays before me and as I have already faced many chalenges in the short 2007 that we have already had, I can relate with the following excert: "If the opponents were taller, stronger, more powerful and more numerous than [the Isrealites] were, that was God's problem. They had a calling to go and a promise to receive. The land was theirs if they would only take it. God would give them victory in the battle, but He would not fight their battle for them." Wow! So many times I am afraid of how I will look if I fail....but I am learning to say to God, this is your call, I walked in obedience, so this is your problem! And you know what, He usually provides the answer just after that! All He is wanting is for me to get over myself and rely solely on HIM!

McManus talks about the concept that you go unless God says stop...you don't wait for the perfect plan, you just keep advancing until He stops you...."There are certain things that you do not need permission to do. You've already been commissioned to do them. There are certain things that you do not need a calling to do. You've already been commanded to do them."

There are so many more things I would love to share with you, but this is turned into a novel already! So let me leave you with these questions that chalenged me:

"Is it possible that you have been fleecing your divine moments rather than seizing them? That you've said to God, 'I'm not doing anything, risking anything or going anywhere until You give me a sign?' Have you chosen to live in safety, comfort, and convenience, justifying this lifestyle because God hasn't called you to a different life?" For me it is has God not called me, or have I just not been listening?

"for a follower of Christ, what it means to live on the edge is to stand at the epicenter of where the kingdom of God confronts the kingdom of darkness".....I love that! I want to live on the edge! I want to walk in the calling God has placed on my life and complete the good works He has prepared in advance for me to do! I want to step out of my comfort zone, and I will advance until GOD says stop!