I have fear, I will admit it... I know a lot of people do not; they feel it better to hide fear from others and even from themselves. Sometimes I am fearful of things like driving and driving through the rain.... but other times I am afraid of so much more. Sometimes I am afraid that I have spent all this time educating myself for a full-time ministry position, following God, and now in the time when things should happen nothing is.. and my fear is that nothing will ever come of it, that I will never find a ministry job, that somehow I am missing something or others will never see the spark of God in me, the one that I know is there but need a chance to show, need a chance to cultivate and mold and express to others.
I have another fear... It is being up in the front, though not nearly as bad as it use to be it is still there, only by the times I have pushed myself forward (with some help from others and strength from God) have I found it easier as my life as progressed. Of course, I have also learned that I am much more nervous before being up front than when I am actually up front, kinda like getting a shot at the doctors office... sometimes the waiting is so very unnerving and difficult, perhaps that is why I find this period in my life quite unnerving. Trying to trust God and wait when the signs seem to show otherwise is difficult. But my fear is that I give up on my calling because it makes me uncomfortable, because it takes risks, because I may not seem the minister-type to some. I have friends who have given up their callings (ministry or otherwise), I know who they are and it saddens me to see them settle for something less when God called them to something greater. Some would say they found a more practical route, more financially feasible, got married or had kids.... to me these are excuses in life that hinder us from following God, from becoming fulfilled.
My fear is that I will never get up and preach like I dream about, preaching sermons that bring light into peoples life. Some that bring them kneeling with utter conviction and others that will infuse believers with joy in the love and compassion from their God, and that that love might be shared with others as the community bond tightens and the Kingdom of God grows like a mustard seed. I fear I will become lazy and doubtful and leave these dreams, these visions behind and trade them for something plain, something normal, settle for a mediocre faith, one that is based on my level of ease and not based on struggling to risk, struggling to let God use me in ways I cannot even imagine.
Another underlying fear is that I will be single, that I will never be married. As much as single guys normally are not supposed to want such things, I actually do... and I have this fear that it will never happen either because it is not God's will for my life or because I have become so pessimistic about relationships now that I will never try for more than friendship, nor would anyone ever see me as more... that I would remain stuck between the family I grew up with and the family I will never have.
Fears, yes I have fears but mixed in with these fears are my dreams, did you sense them in those paragraphs I just wrote, strewn without and within, between the lines and intermixed with my fears... yes, they are intertwined and if I never meet my fears, if I never trust God in those times and in those things, then I will never truly be able to even try grasping at such dreams.
My dreams are to have a wife and a family one day, but also to be a Christian who truly expresses Christ with both my words and my deeds; spoken, written, and acted-out in and through my life. That I will find a ministry job that will use all my gifts and that God will give me the boldness to speak those words, the ones that sit between his word and spirit and my mouth, the ones that stay hidden, the ones that lay waiting... waiting for what sometimes I am not sure...
So my dear fellow readers,
I now ask you the questions...
What are you fears?
What are you dreams?
Have you given up? Are you struggling?
How do your fears and dreams mix and fight against one another?
~ Daniel
Pic:
http://imgarchive.info/200904/47279.jpg
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