Fearless at Heart

Trust and Faith. These words radiate through my journal entries over the past couple of weeks. This past semester has been a journey of learning to hold my dreams loosely as I hold tightly to the One who first instilled the dreams in my soul.

Almost 10 years ago, I left the country that I considered home. I moved across the world to a country that should be home, but felt hollow. I left my heart behind.  

Confused, I wrestled with accepting this new change. How could I be more comfortable in a foreign country than the country of my birth? Moving “home” should have been exciting, but I felt numb.

Confusion. Excitement. Frustration. Betrayal.

These emotions clouded my vision of America, and encouraged my desire to travel the world. Somehow, I felt that if I travelled, I would find that piece of my heart that I had left behind and I would be whole again.

Approximately 4 years ago, as I started on my college adventure, I made it my goal to graduate and leave the country for the great beyonds. I desired to move somewhere I would be interacting with people of different cultures and backgrounds.

I chose my major and minor with the intent that going overseas was my only goal.

These past couple weeks as I began to think about my future and the reality of my dreams, I realized that my dreams had changed slightly.

I had fallen more and more in love with the idea of going overseas and changing the world, but God convicted me.

Why?

Why did I desire to go overseas? Was it because I was trusting God’s plan for my life, or was it because I was more comfortable with dirt floors and no electricity?
If I truly analyzed my motives, I would find that my reasons were selfish.

In my heart, deep, deep down, I believed that if I was not going to fit in anywhere, it would be easier to live in a different culture because then my differences would be as obvious as skin color.

Selfish reasons regardless of the fact that the outcome was others-focused.

Something was changing within me. There are no words to convey how profoundly and deeply God touched my heart as I began to realize this truth.

Why?

As I searched for the answer to this question in my heart, God continued to remind me of the beautiful aspects of life where I am.

>>The beautiful Ohio sunsets.

>>The rain as it falls on a spring afternoon.

>>The vibrant colors as fall creeps in.

>>The sound of my residents laughing down the hall.

>>The thud of textbooks as I breathe a sigh of relief after a nursing test.

>>The companionship of friends

What if by dreaming big, I am putting God in a box? What if I am narrowing my view of God and life to only being happy in the mission field? What if God is asking me open my mind to different chapters in my life, not all of which includes overseas missions?

Four years ago, possibly even last year, that thought would have stunned me. I would not have considered any aspect of life but the one that took me far away to unknown people groups. Now, I am learning that my limited view of God and his plan for my life caused me to miss out on some pretty great things about life in America. I was so focused on going “home” that I lost track of the fact that America is also my home. Ten years later, God takes the emotions that used to cloud my vision of America transforming them with the grace radiating from the center of who He is.

Excitement. Joy. Gratitude. Serenity.

God transformed my view of both him and the world as I began to be content where He has placed me.

Throughout the past semester, my view of God grew as He continued to burst out of every box that I attempted to put Him in. Looking back, I should not expect less from a living, loving, saving, sustaining, almighty God who shapes my heart. He placed these desires in my heart for a specific reason, but it may not look exactly as I desire it to.

As I consider the idea that God is challenging me to step out of my comfort zone and live in America after I graduate, He places a new call in my heart.

I will follow you.

Where you go, I’ll go.

Where you stay, I’ll stay.

If this life I lose, I will follow you.

God is present here, just as much as in Haiti or Nigeria. Therefore, my call is to follow God as he moves in my heart and in the lives of those around me.
A year from now, I do not know where I will be.  Maybe I will be in Africa, South America, Montana, or Ohio.

I do not know where I am leading but I am realizing that God comes first.

Not my plans. Not my dreams. Not my desires.

Rather by letting go of these dreams, it frees up a hand which fits perfectly into the hand of the One who consistently show us how big He truly is.

Simply follow God first.

Everything else falls into place.

In the words of Sarah Bessey, “And this is where I learned that sometimes our most holy mountain-moving faith looks more like spending our whole lives making that mountain move, rock by rock, pebble by pebble, unsexy day after daily day, casting the mountain to the sea stone by stone rather than watching a mountain suddenly rise up and cast itself.”

Sometimes, the biggest blessings come not from restricting God to a specific dream, but by letting go of those dreams to hold on to the hand of the Creator of the Universe.

I woke up this morning with a sense of expectancy. Today, my freshmen arrive on my floor. They come with their excited voices and beautiful souls, entering into a new stage of their life.

They are excited, nervous, scared, unsure, and worried. They have a lot of emotions coursing through their bodies as they take in their new surroundings. Even if they grew up in the area, they are still entering into something new. They are becoming college students. As I reflect back on the last 3 years, I think about the strangeness of college.

It is the only time in your life where you are placed in a community of people who are the same age as you for an extended period of time. You get to live life with other humans who have a similar purpose, but come from vastly different backgrounds.  I love cultivating community with the people around me because it leads to ministry.

Henry Nouwen writes, “Community is not an organization; community is a way of living; you gather around you people with whom you want to proclaim the truth that we are beloved sons and daughters of God.“

Living in a community allows us to call out in each other the aspects of God that we find in each other. The thing about living community like this, it that we first have to is to recognize in our belovedness. Nouwen shares that  ministry starts “because your freedom is anchored in claiming your belovedness”.

My freedom lies in believing that I am beloved.

As I prepared for the freshmen to arrive, I spent 5 hours in solitude. It was an amazing experience because I was able to sit, just me and God, after the craziness of training. We were given this article called “Moving From Solitude To Community To Ministry” by Henry Nouwen. The article reaffirmed the vast majority of what God had been teaching me this summer.

I sat there in solitude, simply dwelling in the silence and being with God and God alone. It was important for me to sit still and listen to the voice of the one who calls me beloved.

God calls me beloved.

The more that I dwelled with that phrase, God began to speak to the corners of my heart, the center of my being, and slowly I began to accept his love for me. I sat on the edge of a pond where a gaggle of geese were relaxing. I began to watch and study the geese. A group of them flew to the opposite side of the lake to feed.

I watched as a clear leader stepped out of the water.

He took one timid step, intently watching his surroundings.

He stretched his leg out as he took another timid step.

He was constantly on guard and he took small steps forward.

Sometimes I feel like that goose. I know what God is asking us to do or accept, but I timidly step forward. Kind of like this idea of being His beloved. I step forward timidly believing that I am loved, but constantly looking for the other foot to drop. It sounds crazy because you would think that being loved would be an easy thing to accept. Meanwhile, God had become so vulnerable in his pursuit of us. He became so little, so dependent in a manger and on a cross and is begging me, “Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you really love me.” How crazy is that? The God of the universe loves me.

It is a gift freely offered by the creator of the universe.

As a result, I am more prepared to do and capable of loving others when I accept that the King of the World and Creator of the Universe loves me.

As the freshmen start the first day of the rest of their lives. I am beginning a new journey.

One that reflects my belovedness.

Tenth Avenue North wraps this idea up well in their song “Beloved”.

You’re my beloved lover
I’m yours
Death shall not part us
It’s you I died for
For better or worse
Forever we’ll be
My love it unites us and it binds you to me
It’s a mystery

I am choosing to walk in the freedom of accepting that God desires me to be exactly the way he created me. He chose me to play in his story of redemption. I have a purpose in his plan.  I desire to choose to live in the freedom of God. The freedom that doesn’t worry about what other people think of me. The freedom that accepts myself for who I am—crazy, beautiful, smart, and weird. The freedom that steps out of my comfort zone. The freedom that loves God with abandon. The freedom that crosses oceans and roads to share the gospel.

I want to choose in to God’s desire to change the world.  I do not know what God has planned for this year, but I know that his plans are better than my plans.

I am not a fan of being uncomfortable.

Stepping out where I have no control.

Right when I think I am figuring out where God has placed me, He pushes me and challenges me to step into the unknown.

It is like life is a map with undiscovered regions. God unravels a new section of the map as I step into the unknown areas.

It is like I am climbing a mountain. I follow the well-worn path, until I reach a spot where the trail is rocky and overgrown.

The way is no longer known or comfortable.

The trail travels on the edge of the cliff and I watch as a loose stone falls down the mountainside.

The trail is unknown and dangerous.

The path is uncomfortable, but necessary to continue to the top of the mountain.

The view at the top is breathless and beyond anything that I could ever imagine—but the journey is rough and often dangerous.
This summer, God continually shoves me out of my comfort zone into the unknown.

He challenges me and pushes me to the limits of my strength for the betterment of my existence.

This often means stepping out into untamed waters or pushing past the known path. It means doing things that are not comfortable.

It all started with the invitation to travel across the country for an internship. I left my home for a much larger city—our nation’s capital. That was a leap into the uncomfortable for me.

I went from a very small town with two-lane roads to a large city with four-lane roads.

I exchanged trickling traffic for rushing cars.

My surroundings changed, but my God remained.

Just as I became comfortable in my new role as intern, God pushed me to step out on stage. He wanted me to take a small break from the background where I am comfortable, and try my hand at speaking.

I sat on the stage in front of 70 eager, wiggling, listening 5^th and 6^th graders.  Their eyes stared at me, expecting great words to come out of my mouth. You know what came out?

Awkward sentences and lots of fillers—at least that is what I heard.

I rehearsed my vacation bible school lesson so many times in front of the mirror. I practiced the words until my tongue knew them backwards and forwards. I was prepared and terrified.

I am not comfortable on a stage. I love one on one conversations, but large crowds are petrifying.  I stared at the wide eyes and began to speak.

Standing up there, in front of a group of listening children, I realized that I had to overcome my fears. I could not let my fears hinder my actions, whether standing in front of people, or going to a new place. I stumbled over my words, but it was not about me. It was not about my own agenda or my own words. It was about God and his ultimate plan for His creation.

Stepping out into the unknown often leads to a greater experience than I could ever imagine.

You unravel me, with a melody

You surround me with a song

Of deliverance, from my enemies

Till all my fears are gone

These words challenged me to not let fear hold me back.

Fear of the unknown hinders me from stepping out in faith and pursuing the passions God has given me.

God, the Creator of the universe, surrounds me with His Grace until all my fears are gone.

He is gives me the strength to take that first step.

I’m no longer a slave to fear 
I am a child of God

I am a child of God.

There is no need to be overcome by fear because God walks with me, into the unknown.

No longer a slave to fear.

No longer a slave to a comfortable life.

No longer a slave to insecurity.

Does God ever make His people comfortable?

No, the reality is that God calls us to be uncomfortable so that we can be challenged and grow as we are stretched. ‘

A comfortable life allows us to rely on our own strength.

He calls me to be uncomfortable so that I have to rely on Him.

The same God who created the world, leads me into unknown waters, or on overgrown trails so that I could be free to live my life to the fullest of what God has planned for my life.

He erases my fear with love and rescues me from my insecurities.

You split the sea, so I could walk right through it
All my fears were drowned in perfect love
You rescued me, so I could stand and sing
I am child of God

I am a child of God.

My prayer as I continue to practice the art of stepping out into the unknown is:

“Lord, I give up my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me a Thou wilt, send me where Thou wilt, work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now & forever.”

—Betty Scott Stam

As hard as it is, I pray that God continues to challenge my comfortableness, and continue to challenge me as I discover how my passions meet God’s plan for my life.