What Happens After God Speaks
I often hear people say they want to hear from God—that they long to know what He wants them to do. I smile when I hear this because I understand the desire. We tend to assume that if we just knew God’s will, life would be easier. But the truth is, clarity rarely makes things simple.
We hope. We pray. We wait. We wonder if we’ll ever truly sense His leading. And then—eventually—God makes His will known. But when He does, it’s not uncommon to feel caught off guard. Despite all the waiting and preparing, we often feel completely unprepared. Not only that, we may face an unexpected crisis of faith. We start to doubt: Is this really from God? What if I’ve misunderstood? What if I fail?
That moment of hesitation isn’t always about lack of faith. Often, it’s fear of failure. Deep down, we want God’s will to come with guarantees—of success, of smooth roads, of minimal pain. But that’s not how it works.
Look at Scripture. The lives of those who followed God were filled with struggle: setbac...
God's Ways Are Redemptive
One thing we can learn from political campaigns is that whatever skeletons a candidate may have in his/her closet will be brought into the public sphere. Things that person has done and things that have been done to the person will be exposed. Mistakes and bad decisions made will become fair game for media and water cooler discussion. It can be a very scary thing to be promoted in the public sphere.
Thankfully the Kingdom of God is different. It is redemptive at its core. The very things that have brought us shame and/or bondage, when meaningfully touched by God, become places of freedom, testimony and God’s glory. When God redeems an area of our lives, we are given fresh authority to stand and to impart to others, hope, courage and overcoming power in that very area . If you have been set free from an addiction, if you have received forgiveness and grace to change a sinful practice, if you have been healed in your soul or body – you have a new platform to be of benefit to others.
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No More Fear Paralysis
When was the last time you failed? Was it huge or a small mistake, a breakdown or a collapse – or have you intentionally suppressed memories of your failure?
Most of us hate failure. Failing makes us feel ashamed. It threatens our identity – as if our identity could be built on consistent, flawless performance.
We need to remember, however, that failure is a significant and important part of life. The only way a child will ever learn to walk is by failing thousands of times. People of great accomplishment have a long string of failures to which they can very easily point.
Winston Churchill, widely regarded as one of world’s great wartime heroes, defined success as “going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
The best way to deal with a fear of failure is to press ahead, try some new things and fail a few times. You will find that the fear of shame associated with the fear of failure is ten times worse than the actual failure. The paralyzing questions related to, “W...
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