Fear and Pride

"There's nothing but fear and pride stopping you!"

I have a friend who used to say that to me all the time.  We are on a year long team together which was full of things to be fearful of, for me anyway.  I was (and still am to a lesser degree...I hope) an insecure, introverted, people-pleasing good girl who was heading out on a year long trip with a bunch of strangers.  We were going to be sharing God's good news through music, drama and puppets for a whole year.  We traveled across our country, down into the states and over to Indonesia and Australia.  There was plenty to be scared of.

What if that cute guy on our team started liking me?  What if he didn't?  What if I really screwed something up?  What if I got sick?  What if our plane crashed?  What if I'm not all that great at meeting new people constantly?

Image by J. Astra Brinkmann

I was one scared little girl.  But this was a dream I had been after for awhile.  I wanted to share the gospel.  I wanted to be part of a performing arts team and here I was at LAX phoning home telling my mom that it might just be better if they came and picked me up.  Of course that wasn't possible because L.A. and Saskatchewan are a long ways apart.  Then something happened.

Remember that cute guy?  Well, he didn't like me, he was dating another girl on the team, but he became my champion.  He got on the phone with my mom and reassured her that he would walk me through this and that she had nothing to worry about.  Then he took me in hand and marched my hyperventilating self onto the plane.

The seven of us lived together for a year, learning how to deal with conflict, learning who had what was needed in the moment.  Learning how to use our gifts and talents to encourage and challenge the people that we met. And we learned how to overcome fear and pride and do what God had sent us there to do.

Fear and pride.  Two enemies of our souls that keep us from doing the thing that is needed to walk into our dream.  I still battle those two enemies and sometimes, unfortunately, they win.  Some days I 'forget' to make that phone call.  Some days I hide behind some imagined need that my kids may have so I don't have to take my introverted self out there again.  Some days my pride won't allow me to put myself out there one more time because fear is screaming at me how stupid I would be to try.

But on other days, God sends along an encourager,  some one who will take you in hand and say, "You can do this thing.  Just one more step and you'll be there. I will walk with you."  Jesus didn't send his disciples out on there own, he sent them in groups.  In Ecclesiastes it says that two are better than one.  Apparently we need each other!

If fear is causing you to shut the door to your dream you may need to swallow that pride of yours and ask someone to help you.  You may just need a partner, someone to shoulder the load and help hold up your hands when you are having a hard time believing anymore.  God told us that we need one another for a reason, because we do.

Perhaps you are the one in a sweet spot where dreams are bursting with reality all around you, then look for that one who is struggling and sitting with the dark cloud, the one who needs you to say, "I've been there before, let me give you a hand."

Don't let fear and pride stop you from reaching for the dream.

  It may seem hard to believe but someone, somewhere needs you to realize that dream, 

because their dream is depending on yours to succeed. 

{put that in your pipe and smoke it!}

May I just give a shout out to my peeps who help me keep dreaming!  You ladies rock my world - and I think ya know who you are... you are amazing.  Why not share below someone who has helped you overcome your fear and/or pride to help you walk into your dream, I'd love to hear about it.

I am linked up with others from the God-sized dream team over here:  CLICK LINK