They say you get stronger in the broken places when you lean into the crisis that your facing
In your weakness you’re made strong
They say when you’ve fallen off a horse, the first thing you gotta do of course is climb right back on
And suddenly… I lost all control. Literally. I lost all control. Those were the words I heard through my speakers as an eighteen-wheeler hitch disconnected in front of me. My heart raced, my steering wheel turned, and I was completely vulnerable to the situation in front of me.
Once the chain of events stopped, and I stepped out of my car completely unharmed. I shook my head in disbelief and asked how did I make it out alive?
I began to think about the amount of attack I feel that I have been under lately, and it suddenly all made sense.
Recently, I have vowed to stop letting my fears control me. I vowed to stop focusing on the storms in front of me and chosen to focus on my deliverance in Christ. Of course since then I have been tempted to fall back into fear, but Christ has given me the courage to speak truth over who he has called me to be and who I am in him. Unfortunately, the enemy is full of curve balls; he is crafty, but definitely not creative. He lives for us to be paralyzed by fear, but I will not be fearful, even about my very life because the Lord is in control. He has called me to walk, not be crippled by fear. I am shielded in Christ.
“The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.” Psalm 28:7
Fear has got no grip on me. I cannot put my faith in circumstances or people. Christ is the only one I can have faith in. Therefore, whom shall I fear? What can man do to me?
Be still and know that I am God, I will never leave you, nor forsake you. I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. It’s so silly to me how we let little fears cripple us: fears of spiders, snakes, etc, yet we become paralyzed at the sight of them.
What if all my fears in life were this small and insignificant, yet they paralyze me to the core and I lose focus?
I am guilty all too often of being steered by my senses rather than the spirit. The irony is, my feelings can’t forecast the future, only my spirit can. I am guilty of being steered by the feelings of fear and anxiety.
In the middle of the storm it’s easier for me to put my head down in my metaphoric paddle boat and just wait for the storm to pass. I choose to remain in the very thing that is drowning me because it’scomfortable. But is it really? Is barely keeping my head above the water all.the.time actually comfortable? Quite the contrary. It’sexhausting. My courage cannot be tied to my conditions, and I have to stop feeding my fears.
When you can’t fix your conditions, fix your focus.
The story of Peter (Matthew 14:22–34) has been a recurring theme in my life over the last six months. It’s probably seemed a little redundant, but maybe that’s just because I’m a slow learner, or a stubborn one for that matter. I can identify with the person of Peter for a lot of reasons, but specifically one instance has not stopped replaying in my mind. Jesus called Peter to come out of the boat and once Peter lost focus he cried out for courage. But the fact of the matter is Peter didn’t need Jesus to stop the storm in order for him to get his courage up. Was Peter more or less able to walk on water if there wouldn’t of been a storm? Absolutely not. Fears are powered by your focus, but your faith is powered by your focus as well.
For a long time I have been putting my faith in “my boat.” The boat is eventually going to go down. I have let the boat (fear) of never being good enough be my refuge for all too long. I know this boat is going to go down eventually but for some reason I was allowing myself to be so preoccupied by making sure that I am good enough (or at least appearing to be) that I was missing Jesus calling me out of that boat.
Innocently we walk down a road of terror; we skip into our deepest destruction thinking it leads to happiness and satisfaction. We skip and run into brokenness. It is not until we are faced with a storm that we realize we are drowning. It is not until we get there that we understand that road was not a blissful walk, but a tragic one. We shriek, we yelp, and we look for anything to keep us afloat. Jesus is standing outside the boat asking us to step out and tread on the water. He asks us to walk on the water and tread on our fears, but he tells us not to lose his gaze. He has conquered your fears: the fear of rejection, failure, judgement, powerlessness, being misunderstood, worthlessness, humiliation, and abandonment. He has overcome all of those and offers: acceptance, grace, companionship, success, love, validation, significance, and trust.
He tells us these are deep, big fears and he recognizes that the hurts are a swelling storm, but he loves us more than to expect us to survive the storms with a simple life jacket and our head barely above the water. He calls us to TREAD on the water, with our hand in his, and sometimes he lets go, sometimes he demands that we walk by faith and not sight, but he asks us to hold his gaze. He loves us enough to teach us to walk upon the waves of our fears and hurts. We cannot doggy paddle (or crawl) forever, he wants us to walk. We can’t get to the shore in our paddle boat that’s sinking and taking our souls with it, we’ve got to get out of that drowning boat and walk hand in hand with Jesus to the shore we’ve been trying to reach all this time.