The Thing You're Scared of Might Be Exactly Where God Is Calling You | Crossroads Daily

Well, hey, I'm Caleb. I'm Mish. I'm Ciara. I'm Alex. And today we're looking at Psalm 27. Okay. I'm gonna start with the first verse. It says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? So I guess God being light helps drive our fear away. Before we get that deep though, I want to know, what are you scared of? Funny? It could be funny. It could be like, listen, A, I hate heights. From like, standing on this couch is okay, but any higher than that, I'm out, man. No heights for me. At all. At all. Feet on ground is good. Yeah. Come on, it should be this one. Like sharks or something? I don't know. Aliens? I mean, like, yeah, those things for sure, but I don't think about them. Yeah. Like, if I saw a shark, when I saw a shark in the ocean, I thought it was cool. But if it started coming close to me and it was big enough, I'd be like, I'm really scared right now. But also I'm like, kind of, I don't know. I accept the fact that if it's going to take me, it's going to take me. It's more like circumstantial. Yeah. No, no, no. I have 100% fear. I don't have any fears, but here's, we got stuck on a plane recently. And when we started, at one point we actually started to take off and then we were on the runway and we started going fast to take off. And then we started slowing down and I thought we were about to hit something. I was scared of that for sure. But that's not like a fear. I don't think about that every day. Okay. That's a new fear of mine right now. I didn't know that. Thanks so much. I feel like Hill over Alex have a good fear. What are you guys scared of? I don't know. I'm like classic, like don't like spiders, don't like snakes, don't like the yucky stuff. I don't know. Yeah. Well, you know, spiders keep the bugs out. So David says at the very beginning, that the Lord is his light. That's the reason why he doesn't have fear. Right. So how does that, where do you see that playing out in your life? Has that played out in your life where the light of God has somehow done something with a fear that you have? Okay. I think of the question. So I'll start right. And I'll give you time to think. I've talked about this on the podcast in the past, but I used to have a really, really, really bad speech impediment growing up. Like to the point that I couldn't communicate at all. And God, understanding what God thinks of me, that he's made me a specific way with gifts. He didn't make me broken, right? That's not a brokenness. It's just something that I can use to develop other skills. I learned to write, which is my primary way of communicating because I couldn't talk to people. And God's been so good that now, like now I'm on a podcast, how is this even happening right now? Right. But like

God's light came in and allowed me to develop it slowly. Whereas all my other friends when they were 13, 14, 15 could get up and whatever, like they're acting, they're on stage and stuff. I'm like, no, uh, but God's good. Yeah. And he's helped grow that in me. Yeah. Good. I feel like for me, I think about how I used to struggle with anxiety and fear just kind of in general, but I think it, the root of it was I, one of the biggest things I struggle with still to this day is just, I care way too much about what people think. And so I just remember if I was going into a meeting or going to class or having coffee with a friend who I know and who I know, who loves me, I, my default would be to rehearse what I thought conversations would be or how I thought the outcome of some, even if it like, wasn't that deep, wasn't that serious. Like I still, that was my default was just to go over things in my mind constantly. But I think it came from that fear of how are people going to receive me or am I going to be liked by people or I don't know. And I think that I've seen God shed light on that over time of like, maybe I shouldn't care as much about what people think about me. Maybe it cares more about, maybe I should care more about what God thinks of me or what God says is true about me versus what people say is true about me. And I think that there's been some freedom in that for me. So I don't, I, I don't struggle with anxiety as much anymore, but I think I had to like, get to the root of what that was for me and shed some light on it. Yeah. Yeah, totally. There's this quote from a poem that I don't know who wrote it, but it's in the movie coach Carter basketball movie. And the guy says like our greatest fear, he's talking about the human race. Their greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, but that we're powerful. to be on all measure. And I relate to that, I think, because a thing that I've struggled with is a care for my reputation, this comparison that eats at my heart and this want and desire to be, honestly, above other people. It's a wrestle that I continue to have. And the thing that I've also wrestled with is whenever I've been given any sense of success,

what I would call success or what the world would call success is actually the burden of responsibility that comes with it. If there's something in front of me, being able to actually say yes to the thing that's in front of me, the responsibility that's in front of me. And how I relate that to the quote is the power that God has given us is the thing that is in front of us. It's the thing that he has uniquely put right in our path right now to work on, to be part of, to labor with. And I think when we do not abide to that calling, when we do not actually sit in that and accomplish it or understand our responsibility in it, that's a power that we are then giving up. And so we say we're afraid of inadequacy, but really we're afraid of the power that we already have. What I love about this scripture is David opens with, who shall I fear? And then he basically talks about his fear and how scared he is for the entire rest of the chapter until the end. And I feel that, like, God, I know you are so good. And then I'm also just crumbled in front of him. Right, yeah, that's a perfect segue to what I wanted to talk about. At the very end, the very last verse,

David starts off sounding really confident. Then as Mish said, he talks about his fears. Verse 14, he reminds himself, be courageous. Let your heart be strong because God is with him, right? I'm gonna finish up with, where is God calling you to do something that requires you to be strong and courageous? Because maybe you don't want to do it. Maybe it's scary. Maybe it's unknown. Where's God doing that in your life? Because I know he's still doing that. He didn't do it just with David. He's doing it with us now. Yeah. I think for me, there's an element of delayed gratification that God is inviting me into that I'm like, no, I'm okay. I'll figure it out. I'm good without that. I think for a while this year, he's been giving me invitations like, no, this year, I really want you to start talking more. And I'm like, actually, I'm totally fine without doing that. And I think there's this element of control that I have in feeling secure and comfortable where I am. But he's like, no, my invitation is going beyond that and you need to accept that. So I think there's this denial of self

that is very challenging, especially when you're in a season and it's like, oh, this feels different. What am I gonna do now? But I don't know, leaning on trust more. So, yeah. And now you're on the podcast talking about this. Yeah, here you are. Brilliant, I love it. So fun. What else? I know for our family, what you guys think, one of the things that God is calling us to that requires strength and courage is we're trying to pay off all our debt, like trying to not have any. And that's hard because it requires us to divert funds that would be more fun used over here, not paying off this credit card or paying off this car or whatever. But again, having like the long-term vision of when that's done, that frees us up in so many different ways, right? To be generous, to make moves in life. It does require courage because I'd wanna keep that money either over here for like a rainy day or use it for fun. Yeah. But yeah, we got one debt down, we got a couple more to go.

Yay, congratulations. We're getting on it, yeah. That's good. Okay, so David says that he's not afraid because God is with him, but it still requires him to have courage. What's God calling you to do that maybe feels a little uncomfortable? It's gonna require some courage and trust. That's probably the right thing for you to get started on today. We'll see you next time. ♪♪♪