Fear. Lately, I have been overcome much by it. The fear of others.
It is the fear of not strangers I walk past every day, but of those people closest to me.
I fear their thoughts of me, their opinions, I’m scared of disappointing them. Why? Because their opinions matter so much to me, their approval makes me feel like I’ve got my life together, their Judgement hurts more than the Judgement of strangers. Their words like the tide coming in can lift me up, or like the tide going out can drag me so far down.
But this fear has become a giant in my life. I’ve let it little by little take control of more and more areas of my life. And as I’m writing at this moment tears are starting to form in my eyes. I’m overwhelmed by this, I’m almost confused as to how it’s taken such a hold of my life.
Negative labels have stuck with me. I've given over so much power to the words that people speak over me, that their words have slowly started to define me and have caused me to overlook and doubt what my Heavenly Father says about me.
I’ve walked away from the dreams and opportunities that God has given to me, all because I was afraid that others wouldn’t approve, that it would ruin relationships, that it would change people’s opinions of me.
I forfeited my dream on the altar of fear. And I missed out on following God’s will when I should have followed it. And what did I do with that dream instead? I pushed it aside, tried to focus on and pursue other things. Still, that dream is tugging at my heart now, as much as I try I can not push it away any longer. I could run away from it, but I would be running away from it for the rest of my life.
I don’t want to run away from it anymore. I don’t want to have to one day look back and realize my mistake in not pursuing that God-given passion and that God-sized dream because of letting fear dictate my decisions. I’ve learned recently that a God-sized dream is beyond my ability, beyond my resources. Without God, it can’t be done. And that is how he gets the glory, that is how he can show himself so powerful to us, we learn to rely on him because without God we can’t do it. By not going after what he wants me to go after, I feel like I'm almost robbing God of the glory he deserves to get out of it.
I am done being scared. I'm tired of running. God has not given me a spirit of fear. I'm going to follow him and trust him in this next step of my life, I am going to pursue this God-given dream. And as excited as I am, I know this will not be an easy choice. I know that there will be hard days ahead. I know that others might not approve, that it might ruin some relationships and that it will change some people’s opinions of me. But the more I'm understanding how powerful and awesome my heavenly father is, the less I'm fearing others.
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