How to fearfully walk with Jesus

We spend a lot of time being afraid. 

Stressing, worrying, and being just plain scared.

And that is okay. I and the rest of humankind are right there beside you.

The goal is not to learn to never be afraid, but to learn how through Jesus we can overcome fear. 

So, how do we overcome it?

My answer is based on the simple idea that as our faith grows, so our fear diminishes. 

As Jesus said to his disciples after calming the storm in Mark 4:30: “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

The question therefore shifts from how can we reduce fear to how can we grow our faith, or in other words our trust?

And how do you grow in trust towards God Let’s answer that:

1. Spend more (intentional) time with Him/become more familiar with Him.

This translates to praying (intentionally) more than you are now, and learning about Gods character in the Bible. As you spend intentional time with Him, you will learn to trust Him more.

2. Get in community and hear what he does for others.

I am in marketing.

And one of the keys to selling anything is proving credibility. This very often done in the form of “testimonials.” If it can work for someone else, it can for you. 

And this works.

Jesus is not a business or selling anything, but the idea of being convinced by other testimonials remains

As we hear amazing stories of what the Lord does for others, so we can become more convinced that he is indeed faithful. This is not as powerful as experiencing it ourselves, but is a good first step.

3. Experience his trustworthiness ourselves by letting Him prove trustworthy in context specific domains.

What do I mean with this?

The disciples trusted Jesus in general, but they did not trust that he was capable of calming a storm. When He did calm a storm, they were amazed, and their trust in what we could do grew.

Similarly, we may trust God in general, but we need to learn to trust him in specific domains of our lives.

Giving God the chance to let himself prove himself to you in a specific domain of life will help you overcome fear.

Tip: Whichever domain you are most afraid of letting go is probably the one you need to let go of the most.

If you:

1. Intentionally pray and read the Bible more

2. Get in encouraging Christian community

3. Step out in domain specific faith.

Your trust in God will grow, I can virtually guarantee it, and likewise, slowly but surely your fear will decrease.

The question is not a matter of how, it’s a matter of whether you are willing to do it.

Because these things are easy to say, but extremely difficult to live out. 

I cannot do that for you.

Therefore my prayer for you today is that God would give you the strength and commitment to put aside distractions and learn to really live this out.

May He be with you,

Until next time,

Be Blessed,

Aaron

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