Me: I want to do [______________] and I can’t.
Him: What’s stopping you from doing it?
Me: I don’t know. I can’t explain it…
Him: I don’t know you well, but I can tell you know what it is. And I’m pushing you to articulate whats holding you back.
Me: Okay, okay. I’m… I’m so… fearful.
Him: You’re fearful of being fearful?
Me: Yes.
Him: What’s the worst possible thing that could happen? What’s the worst case scenario? Lay it on me!
Me: I’m fearful of the consequences of following my heart and failing. I fear losing money on empty pipe dreams. I fear poverty. I fear inability to change what everyone seems to believe cannot. I fear failure and embarrassment and humiliation. I fear being a neglectful wife and poor step-mother and failing homemaker. I fear dreaming so big that I’m lost in the orbit of a universe outside of our galaxy… floating past the point of no return where I can’t come back and live a life I once did. But most of all, I fear the audacity of believing I can change the world and feeling ridiculous for believing I can.
Him: If all those things happen, are you still alive? Can you still dream? Will your family still love you? With all due respect Bianca, I don’t think your fear is of failure. No, your greatest fear is that you will succeed. And you don’t know what to do with that.
In pursuing the calling God puts in our life, what can fear kill? Everything. Fear will inhibit and thwart us from being the person we sense in our hearts we truly are. The one who is talented and compassionate and gifted. The one who is smart and logical and able. The one who is called and predestined and confirmed.
Me: What are you dreaming of? What is stopping you?
You: _______________
true. fear and the status quo look mighty nice together, holding hands skipping along – sometimes I think, "why mess with that?" But, fear tries to halt what God is trying to do in and through you. Using your strength requires a shift in momentum, a push or pull against something else. It takes putting yourself out there to be attacked, persecuted, laughed at and put down. But fear says they were right. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway, says God was.
Great word, Mela!!
WOW, I'm right there with you, girl. Yes, succeeding is scary. Thank you for putting a name to that fear I feel. Let's move forward in faith together, my friend! Cheering you on…
And cheering you on TOO! xoxo
Perfect timing!
You owe me a prayer! 😉
I do this more than I'd like to admit.
Ok, so how do you know the calling God puts in our life?…how do you know whether or not it's your own desires calling and pulling and throbbing to have you chase the path that brings fear to you? How do you know if where you are right now is just where God wants you and your desires to pursue a dream are NOT what God wants you to do but instead to stay the course and sacrifice those dreams for the better good that He is calling me to do?
Uugghh..everything you stated above is no lost friend to my thoughts…
Success means change, and I know how to do what I'm doing now. If I succeed, I don't know where to go from there. But…I still think I'm scared of failing…and people seeing me try, knowing I want it, and it not happening. This definitely gave me some things to think about…
Bianca, you are already successful:)
I'm dreaming of getting my bachelor's degree while I'm working full time. It's tough, and often times I fear sharing this, because I fear I might not make it. I'm just taking it semester by semester.
Bianca I don't know how you always do it but You always talk about things my heart is going through… My fear is quitting and going to school full time to finish up my degree. This is something I'm always praying about always on my mind … Thank you for letting God speak through you to me …
you just described my feelings and my life TO A TEE! Wow.
Hello! Story of my life… *cringe*
wow….thx bianca… i have been and still am…. there. reminds me of this:
Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamson
"it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world…."
melissa
wow i love this! ;D! thanks for sharing
I second that…I keep coming back to this post…and this comment. Thanks for sharing!
I can't even find the words to express how much this resonates with me and hit me all at the same time as I read this. I will just say Thank You!
I feel ya on this. I've got those same fears of i'll fail, i'll be poor, etc etc., but we have to push through that and live the lives God has called us to. He hasn't called us to lives that are easy, but lives that are Christ-like and good.
A great book that initially helped me with fear ( I need to go back and read it again) is Mark Batterson's In a pit with a lion on a snowy day.
Thanks for sharing, Bianca!
this is EXACTLY what God's been telling me too. it's scary and exhilarating all at the same time!
what do you do when you are in a relationship and they seem to bring out the worse in you, yet you know this is where God has called you to be?
ME: I want to purchase a duplex. I want an investment home to enable me to move out of my parents house and to help supplement my current income. I'm afraid I'm not money-wise, but money-stupid. I doubt my abilities to maintain the house. I fear losing my property, squandering my life's savings, and ending up at square one; my parents' home eating frozen dinners and rice krispies treats. I'm afraid that my desire for "this" is a desire for "more" and therefore I'm sinning and struggling with greed and should pray I see the errors of my ways.
Fear less hope more eat less chew more whine less breathe more talk less say more hate less love more and all good things are yours. For to fear death my friends is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise for it is to think that we know what we do not know.
I dream of writing. Of spending my entire day at a computer. My fingers dancing on the keyboard and stringing words together. Sharing my heart and love of story with all who are willing to read. Of making this my career (or in the very least a way to fund the other career I dream of).
And I am afraid. Of success. And of what will happen next. Because as soon as I succeed, it is no longer a dream. It will be reality. And then what? I am so afraid of what will come next. Of moving out of this spot and into where I am supposed to be. Because as difficult as it is to be here, it is also comfortable. It is what I know. And the successs is what I do not know.
Bianca, I am crying reading this. It is exactly what I'm going through and what I'm feeling right now but can't always put into words. Fear has bound me and turned me into a smaller, weaker version of the true me I was and am created to be. I'm so grateful for your challenging and encouraging words. God uses you mightily. And I'm giving you huge virtual hugs!!! x
I fear success. Not because I fear actual success, but because I fear what I may become because of success: self-absorbed, mildly popular, driven to succeed rather than driven to make a difference in the lives of those I'm able to connect with. Despite these negative internal connotations, I know I will succeed because I am a child of the Most High – I was born to succeed.
I am fearful. Why? I just cannot articulate all the turmoil going on within me. The biggest struggle is my mother died August 19, 2010 and I am so torn up. I am changed, but I do not know if the change is good. I do not know how to not be where I am right now. No one else seems to grieve as I do, therefore I am seemingly alone and trapped. So everything else gets all wrapped with my grief and the issues seem so less important, but are very necessary for survival, such as over-due rent, food, health insurance, car, gas, work, children, and finishing college.
exactly my struggle. exactly. thank you
SUCH a good post. so, so good.
When you pursue your dreams, every second is an encounter with God."
Got this in an email today. Don't know who said it, but I love it.
I want to write, but I'm afraid that people will hate it and I'll fail or I'm afraid that people will love it and my life will go in a direction that I have no control over.(I'm def Type A) right now my blog is safe. What if I feel called to do more? I'm not qualified for that.
I want to fall in love, but what if someone sees the real me and still loves me with all my junk? Will I be able to return love with all my junk?
Good post. Makes me think about things I don't really want to think about. I like that…today. Tomorrow? Who knows…
Bianca, thank you for being such an inspiration! What a wonderful post!
Wow. What a great post – I've had someone ask me that same question before. It's kind of liberating to answer it and realize all that fear. Thanks!
Ugh!!!! I hate having to look in and figure out this out! I am dreaming of my own ministry of some sorts, but I am not sure what "that" is! I write devotionals for my church and get complimented all the time and I recently was told from a missionary that I have more passion and drive them most pastors he has met. I am still stuck! I don't know if I am suppose to leave ministry or am I suppose to be the next speaker, which is a scare for me! I think this is one of the reasons I read your blog and Jon Acuff, Michael Hyatt, and so on! I want God to make the fleece wet and show me that IS what it is.
My dream… is it so hard for my to articulate my dream. My fear is speaking it out loud because our words are life and death – will speaking it mean life for my dream or the death of it?
Bianca, thank you. Athousand thank yous. I really needed this today. Why are you so awesome!!!?? You always write just what I need.
Bianca, this almost EXACTLY how I've been feeling these past few months. I have these huge dreams and aspirations that I intent to accomplish one day, but it doesn't help the fact that my parents are not supportive of them. It really feels like they are constantly underestimating me and I'm tired of proving to them that I can do this. But what if my parents are right? What if my plans fall through and I'm left with nothing? I can't fail those around me that are routing me on…it wouldn't be fair…..
"Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
-Corrie Ten Boom
To move on with the real multi-tasking capabilities, it would be better with Android as iPhone finds it to be difficult in running the application simultaneously.
I needed to hear this today…I am going back and forth on my dream to pursue my passion but fear is holding me back. Thank you
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