With all the random and diverse thoughts that pass through my head on a daily basis, these success-based thoughts are what God has shown me to write about these past few days. When I started this 5 days ago, I really wasn’t expecting it to go this direction but hey, that’s the fun of it right? It’s an organic thing that is developing along the way…So I guess if you’re reading this and have really needed to hear these words about this topic, consider it God’s personal gift to you 😉
Fear is a nasty bug. It could easily be compared to a spider and it’s web. I actually happen to love watching spiders weave webs and am in awe of the spider web design itself, however do I want the creepy crawly legs walking on any part of my body? Absolutely not. Especially since I grew up in a FL orange grove and have experienced the larger-than-human-hand size grove spiders greeting me in my bedroom before I intended to go to sleep. Intended to being the key phrase here, because there was absolutely no way I was closing my eyes with one of those things lurking…*shiver*. Ok enough with the heebie geebies…
Fear weaves its web and waits for us to get an idea to step out of our comfort zones. To step out in faith, in a direction we feel God is leading us toward, in an attempt to fully live and enjoy the abundant life He created us for. But if you’ve ever watched a spider capture an unfortunate bug who happened to touch its web, you know it takes a fraction of a second for mr. spidey friend to secure its next meal. It only takes a fraction of a second for the ‘fear spider’ to devour our faith thoughts.
There are many areas where fear can mess up our heads, but fear of failure has been one of my biggest spiders. In my head, there’s no reason to fail if we have the ability to calculate all the possible outcomes and create back up plans and how to handle them to prevent failure. But reality is, that takes forever AND there is absolutely no way we can predict every single possible unknown. And by us WORRYING and creating anxiety in our bodies through concentrating on every possible thing that could go wrong, we’re not living in faith and trusting the one who is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end, the one who already knows where we’re headed…and knows it’ll be ok because He’s still on the throne and He holds the universe in His hand 🙂
I have wasted countless hours in my lifetime, worrying about missing God’s direction for my life. Being afraid to take a step in any direction because what if it was the wrong one??? What if I took a step down the wrong path? What if I did something and ‘failed’?
And then God showed me that He is big enough. If my heart is set on earnestly following Him, and in my humanness I screw up and make a wrong decision or get involved with something I maybe shouldn’t have, He is big enough. Even if my heart hasn’t been fully set on Him and I’ve decided to take over my life and leave Him on the sidelines, He is big enough.
When a baby is first learning to walk, they go all over the place right? They wobble, they fall, they get back up, go to the right, then decide to go to the left, etc. But no one freaks out and gets upset because they’re falling or weaving back and forth do they? No, their parents are cheering them on because they’ve made the effort to stand up and take their first steps. They’ve fallen and gotten back up again.
If this is how earthly parents see their earthly children, how much MORE is our Heavenly Father cheering for us?!?!? So what if we step out in faith and royally screw up?! We decide it’s a success because we can learn valuable information to carry into our future. Instead of getting caught up in the web of fear, we can rise above and allow faith to give us the ability to use the web strands as pathways to freedom in God instead of sticky traps that keep us contained.
Image Credit: Erin Kass Photography