Feelings and Faith

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, love and of self-discipline." ~2 Timothy 1:7

I've had a week full of instruction, massive internal turmoil, obedience, and extreme freedom. Yes indeed, this week has had some major faith stretching and growth for me.

During the course of our typical support raising week, Jennifer and I have to make a lot of phone calls. With each call, we try and line up times to go and meet with people to share with them our ministry. These phone calls are the most intense and in my mind most scariest aspect of raising support. Imagine calling someone you most likely don't know and asking them to meet with you to talk about financial giving. Feel that pit in your stomach...yup, that's what we go through.

Normally we call at night. This means I get the whole day to think about the fearful calls and allow my emotions to take over. By the time I sit down at the computer with the phone in my hand to dial, I'm usually scared out of my mind. Letting my feelings take over, I then try to rationalize my way out of making the call. It's an ugly thing to witness...where my flesh rears its head quite often.

Jenn has been a warrior in these calls. Honestly, she makes the majority of them. But lately, I've felt God telling me to step up in leadership and take on more of the calls. As a man, I need to be on the front line calling for our support raising. It's that simple.

This week has been a major breakthrough for me in busting through the fear associated with calling. Things started out like usual for me this week. Every time I would pick up the phone, I felt the familiar paralyzing fear creeping into my heart. But about halfway through the week, God broke in and revealed something very basic to me...It's all about faith, not feelings.

So with phone in my hand, I'm beginning to learn what it means to set the feelings aside and step out in faith trusting God to work. My prayers have consistently been...Father, I know you don't cause fear, so I'm setting it aside and doing this in faith. Give me strength in this call. God's consistently answered my prayers this week. It's been amazing to see the freedom that the simple concept has brought in my walk with him the last few days.

Now I'm by no means a phone calling machine yet, but I know now that with prayer, setting my fears aside, and stepping out in faith, I can grow in my trust of God each time I make a call. My fears are dissipating punching that green send button on my phone and are being replace by amazing spiritual freedom. Praise God! :-) God continues to stretch us as we prepare to get to Idaho!