Fear
Sorry for my little lapse in posting, been kinda busy the past few days with fixing our garage with my uncle. But house repairs are not the only thing that have been going on over the past few days, I'm proud to say that on tuesday, I was finally baptized. For those of you who don't know, or aren't sure what baptism is, its a public demonstration that symbolizes our relationship with Jesus, an illustration of how His death, burial, and resurrection have saved us and given us new life, and a public testimony that we now live for Him. It was quite a big step for me, and a very powerful experience, but sadly one I did not use to it's fullest potential, which actually goes with what I was going to talk about tonight, spreading the Word.
In my bible reading guide, today was about witnessing, or sharing God with others. Its something I've never ever been good at, since the beginning of my walk with Christ. I don't know what it is, but I could just never really bring God up to people, and at times, I'll admit I was kind of embarrassed of letting others know about my faith. Being a Christian isn't exactly the "in thing" these days, or ever really was if you think about it, back in biblical times you had to be careful about it or risk being killed! But where today we don't have to worry about something as extreme as death, we worry about something (in our eyes at least) worse, people's opinion. Now sometimes that can be dreaded almost as much as death, especially among those our age, I know I've worried about it a lot, and still do sometimes. Letting people know you are a Christian can instantly flag you as any number of things, weird, judgmental, not able to have a good time, ect, ect. Now its not to say that everyone can be like that, another good thing about today vs long ago is that people can also be more accepting, but that doesn't always stop a person from being afraid to let their faith be known.
Now when it comes to my life, I thank God so much that I was blessed with a group of friends that was pretty accepting of my faith. I never really had any problems with letting it be known among them, and that is something I know not everyone gets the luxury of growing up with. But even with a gift like that, I was still afraid to share what I had, I was no bible scholar, (still not one either) I only had a basic knowledge of my faith, and even had some doubts with it at times, and it kept me quiet. "When I learn more I'll start trying" or "They'll think I'm weird" I always told myself, and for a long time I listened to those things, and not only did it keep me from telling them, but it kept me from telling anyone else for that matter, I mean if I couldn't even talk with my own friends about it, how could I talk to strangers?
Thankfully, God isn't one to just let you sit there and be lost with this stuff, that old saying where if He closes a door and opens a window has some truth behind it. Once I started following Him again, I knew this would be something that would come up, and now it seemed like it would be even harder. Time had passed, we had all grown up more, everyone had their own ideas about how things were, and I had turned away from my faith for a while, now how would I be able to share something that I had even turned my back on? A seemingly titanic task indeed. But once again, God would remind me that He is bigger then anything, and like they always say on BSG about the cylons, He has a plan. (man I've been waiting to use that one, lol)
One of the many things I love about God, is how He uses anything for His will, your strengths, weaknesses, talents, and mistakes, what He used in my case, was LJ. In the few years I had been going my own way, I had used LJ as my virtual soap box for whining, complaining, bitching, and just about every other little depressed thing I could think of that I wanted people to hear. With it I had such freedom to talk about anything, I could say things on here that I couldn't think of saying to people in person, if I wanted to let people know I was depressed, LJ, if I was angry, LJ, if I was happy, LJ, and God saw potential with that. When I discovered the cool little reading guide in the back of my bible I was over joyed, finally a "how to" section for how to start reading the bible. As I started using it, I noticed there was a part at the end of each segment about writing down your thoughts on the day's subject in a journal. Not being the best hand-writer in the world I thought, "hey, I'll just use LJ", and sure enough, after I was done with the first day's section I was logging on here to write. When I had finished my first entry, I remember going down to the "show this entry to:" tab, and as I set it to private, I paused.
At this point, I still wasn't too sure about how God speaks to ya, I just remember thinking, "hey, you know you could always let your friends see this." but instantly my fear stepped in, all the old thoughts about "what if they think I'm weird" or "what if they ask questions and I don't know what to say" came up and I had pretty much talked my way out of it. So the next day came, and again, the same situation, but this time I the urge to set it to "friends only" was getting stronger, I started entertaining the idea that it was God trying to tell me something, but again, after a bit more though, I talked myself out of it. I sat there in my chair for a while after I signed off, I just couldn't stop thinking about what I was reading, and what I felt I was being told to do. My thoughts kept coming back to that verse I read, Philippians 4: 6-7,
"Don't worry about anything, instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."
I just kept thinking, this could be it, this could be my way of sharing my faith, the only thing that was holding me back, was well, me. So I got down on my knees and did just that, prayed about it, and asked God for what I needed, for strength to put myself, and my faith out there for my friends to see. It was still hard to do, I even had to write a bit of a disclaimer, but I did it. And that wasn't the end of it either.
In the weeks that followed, I not only let my entries be seen by my friends, I made them public, I posted links to them on myspace and facebook. Anyone and everyone could stop in and see these things I was writing about. I worried about my entries, if I would be good enough at writing them to convey all the awesome things I was learning about God, and they just kept getting longer and more detailed, I was actually getting surprised what I was putting down after I was done with them! And then I wondered, if they were actually doing anything for anyone who might be reading them, and sure enough, one day I came on here, and as I went through my friend's page, I saw a rather large entry from Andy, and at the very top was this,
"i must admit, that lately ive thinking about religion alot. im not going to lie, ryan's new found faith is a direct cause. so if and when you read this ryan, you certainly were successful about getting me to think about religion"
I was beside myself with amazement, of all the people on here, Andy was the last one I'd expect to hear anything from on the whole thing. (I don't mean that in a bad way or anything though Andy) God had once again shown me that nothing was beyond Him. I continued to write, and share, and I continue to pray that anyone who sees these things might stop and think about them. I've found in my time away from God that people who try to beat you over the head with it are doing it all wrong, you never force what you believe on someone, you offer it. All I've been doing is trying to plant seeds, God is the ultimate gardener, and He will take care of the rest.
Which in close, brings me back to my baptism, as I said before, it was an amazing experience. I remember being so afraid to go out there, in front of other christians, how silly is that? I let my fear get in the way of inviting people who need to hear this stuff, and in turn, part of me feels like I cheated them out of what God did in my life, and the lives of everyone else there that day. But the cool thing about God, is that He uses anything, even your mistakes, and He showed me that night what happens when I let fear get in my way. Its still gonna be hard to get past, but I now have something to always look back to to remind me of why I have to start being fearless, instead of fearful...
In my bible reading guide, today was about witnessing, or sharing God with others. Its something I've never ever been good at, since the beginning of my walk with Christ. I don't know what it is, but I could just never really bring God up to people, and at times, I'll admit I was kind of embarrassed of letting others know about my faith. Being a Christian isn't exactly the "in thing" these days, or ever really was if you think about it, back in biblical times you had to be careful about it or risk being killed! But where today we don't have to worry about something as extreme as death, we worry about something (in our eyes at least) worse, people's opinion. Now sometimes that can be dreaded almost as much as death, especially among those our age, I know I've worried about it a lot, and still do sometimes. Letting people know you are a Christian can instantly flag you as any number of things, weird, judgmental, not able to have a good time, ect, ect. Now its not to say that everyone can be like that, another good thing about today vs long ago is that people can also be more accepting, but that doesn't always stop a person from being afraid to let their faith be known.
Now when it comes to my life, I thank God so much that I was blessed with a group of friends that was pretty accepting of my faith. I never really had any problems with letting it be known among them, and that is something I know not everyone gets the luxury of growing up with. But even with a gift like that, I was still afraid to share what I had, I was no bible scholar, (still not one either) I only had a basic knowledge of my faith, and even had some doubts with it at times, and it kept me quiet. "When I learn more I'll start trying" or "They'll think I'm weird" I always told myself, and for a long time I listened to those things, and not only did it keep me from telling them, but it kept me from telling anyone else for that matter, I mean if I couldn't even talk with my own friends about it, how could I talk to strangers?
Thankfully, God isn't one to just let you sit there and be lost with this stuff, that old saying where if He closes a door and opens a window has some truth behind it. Once I started following Him again, I knew this would be something that would come up, and now it seemed like it would be even harder. Time had passed, we had all grown up more, everyone had their own ideas about how things were, and I had turned away from my faith for a while, now how would I be able to share something that I had even turned my back on? A seemingly titanic task indeed. But once again, God would remind me that He is bigger then anything, and like they always say on BSG about the cylons, He has a plan. (man I've been waiting to use that one, lol)
One of the many things I love about God, is how He uses anything for His will, your strengths, weaknesses, talents, and mistakes, what He used in my case, was LJ. In the few years I had been going my own way, I had used LJ as my virtual soap box for whining, complaining, bitching, and just about every other little depressed thing I could think of that I wanted people to hear. With it I had such freedom to talk about anything, I could say things on here that I couldn't think of saying to people in person, if I wanted to let people know I was depressed, LJ, if I was angry, LJ, if I was happy, LJ, and God saw potential with that. When I discovered the cool little reading guide in the back of my bible I was over joyed, finally a "how to" section for how to start reading the bible. As I started using it, I noticed there was a part at the end of each segment about writing down your thoughts on the day's subject in a journal. Not being the best hand-writer in the world I thought, "hey, I'll just use LJ", and sure enough, after I was done with the first day's section I was logging on here to write. When I had finished my first entry, I remember going down to the "show this entry to:" tab, and as I set it to private, I paused.
At this point, I still wasn't too sure about how God speaks to ya, I just remember thinking, "hey, you know you could always let your friends see this." but instantly my fear stepped in, all the old thoughts about "what if they think I'm weird" or "what if they ask questions and I don't know what to say" came up and I had pretty much talked my way out of it. So the next day came, and again, the same situation, but this time I the urge to set it to "friends only" was getting stronger, I started entertaining the idea that it was God trying to tell me something, but again, after a bit more though, I talked myself out of it. I sat there in my chair for a while after I signed off, I just couldn't stop thinking about what I was reading, and what I felt I was being told to do. My thoughts kept coming back to that verse I read, Philippians 4: 6-7,
"Don't worry about anything, instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."
I just kept thinking, this could be it, this could be my way of sharing my faith, the only thing that was holding me back, was well, me. So I got down on my knees and did just that, prayed about it, and asked God for what I needed, for strength to put myself, and my faith out there for my friends to see. It was still hard to do, I even had to write a bit of a disclaimer, but I did it. And that wasn't the end of it either.
In the weeks that followed, I not only let my entries be seen by my friends, I made them public, I posted links to them on myspace and facebook. Anyone and everyone could stop in and see these things I was writing about. I worried about my entries, if I would be good enough at writing them to convey all the awesome things I was learning about God, and they just kept getting longer and more detailed, I was actually getting surprised what I was putting down after I was done with them! And then I wondered, if they were actually doing anything for anyone who might be reading them, and sure enough, one day I came on here, and as I went through my friend's page, I saw a rather large entry from Andy, and at the very top was this,
"i must admit, that lately ive thinking about religion alot. im not going to lie, ryan's new found faith is a direct cause. so if and when you read this ryan, you certainly were successful about getting me to think about religion"
I was beside myself with amazement, of all the people on here, Andy was the last one I'd expect to hear anything from on the whole thing. (I don't mean that in a bad way or anything though Andy) God had once again shown me that nothing was beyond Him. I continued to write, and share, and I continue to pray that anyone who sees these things might stop and think about them. I've found in my time away from God that people who try to beat you over the head with it are doing it all wrong, you never force what you believe on someone, you offer it. All I've been doing is trying to plant seeds, God is the ultimate gardener, and He will take care of the rest.
Which in close, brings me back to my baptism, as I said before, it was an amazing experience. I remember being so afraid to go out there, in front of other christians, how silly is that? I let my fear get in the way of inviting people who need to hear this stuff, and in turn, part of me feels like I cheated them out of what God did in my life, and the lives of everyone else there that day. But the cool thing about God, is that He uses anything, even your mistakes, and He showed me that night what happens when I let fear get in my way. Its still gonna be hard to get past, but I now have something to always look back to to remind me of why I have to start being fearless, instead of fearful...