Leave it to God. Leave it to Him, to in His infinite, perfect, and infallible ways to dig up something brand new in my soul that I didn’t even ever know I was afraid of.
Over the years I have worked up a pretty exhaustive list of my fears, in order to allow God to break their cycle of control over my life. Its from these lists that chapter 1 of Breaking the Fear Cycle was born.
I’ve made so many lists of my fears to tackle that, in fact, I was determined that I could not possibly muster up any more.
Wrong.
Don’t you love being wrong? I surely don’t. And alas God brings me over and over again to this familiar place of, “Maria, contrary to your popular belief you do not know everything.”
Blasted! God knows I really do not enjoy not knowing everything.
So here I am, sitting at my kitchen table having a quiet reflective lunch before picking my child up from pre-school and these words God whispers gently to me:
Maria, I know there is a lot you would do for me. But would you be willing to be embarrassed for me?
I’ve gotten used to saying yes to whatever God asks of me. Since Gideon I’ve tried to make a habit of not waiting so long to submit to his will over my own, but this? Hmmmm. This time I think, if I am being honest, I really want to say no.
Thanks God for asking, but I am going to opt out!
In our discipleship group we have been studying Spiritual Gifts and asking the hard question if there is anyway that God is calling us to boldly step out. I am fine with boldly stepping out, but in God’s pointed question to me it hit me that doing something new and brave for God means we might not get it correct right out of the gate.
I feel like I’m getting too old for trial and error and I’d just prefer to keep doing what I already know how to do. And yet, where is the God adventure in that? Doesn’t that just leave me tempted to rely on myself instead of the power of God in me?
And while I’m not ready to right here and right now put in writing that I am willing to be embarrassed for God, I am deeply considering His ask of me. His question puts my confidence to the flame. Afterall, if He is truly the only one I am concerned with pleasing what does it matter if I am embarrassed in front of people?
What would you say to God if He directly asked this of you? Its an especially hard one for us recovering perfectionist, fear filled, control freaks. Can I get an “amen” to that one?
As we go on this faith and life adventure together, I pray that these are the hard questions we ask one another. Grab a friend and ask them: if you knew your embarrassment was a direct result from working out a new call that God has for you, could you be okay with it?
Amazingly enough the same week I wrote this post, I discovered a dear sister of mine Niki Hardy also wrote about embarrassment. You can read her take on it here.