by donyadunlap | Aug 4, 2012 | Making a Difference, Modern Day Slavery, The Spiritual Life
Everyone is afraid of something—and not usually just one something, but a lot of somethings. The list of common phobias is extensive.
Attribution: KickAss Pics (Forgive the name please. I didn’t choose it!)
Reactions to fear
Avoidance
Fear can be paralyzing or motivating depending on how you handle it. Personally, I am afraid of spiders. I don’t care if they aren’t poisonous, there is something just inherently evil about something with that many legs creeping about my house. My common reaction to spiders is avoidance and delegation. In college, my friend Naomi was my designated spider killer (and I kept her quite busy). After college, my roommate and I had a deal. She killed the eight legged creatures and I disposed of the lesser legged intruders. It was a great partnership.
Procrastination
There is also a great deal of fear wrapped up in my writing. This manifests as procrastination. What if I say the wrong thing? What if someone disagrees with me? Will people expect me to have all of my life together and be disappointed when they find out I have a basketful of faults that I struggle with every day? If I let it, these fears will keep me from writing. They cause me to delay posts my heart is begging me to share and they turn every chapter that I write for publishing into a spiritual battleground.
Motivation
My greatest and most personal fear is personal harm. I believe a lot of people share this fear or something like it and that it is paralyzing us in our efforts to reach the needy of this world with the power of Christ. However, I believe that my fear of being raped is part of what motivates me to fight on behalf of the thousands of women and children that face that reality every day in the multi-billion dollar sex industry. The Lord has given me an enormous burden and passion to help these souls, in part, because I am so afraid of becoming a victim myself.
Control
When Jesus visited the Gadarenes in Mark chapter 5, he had just performed an amazing miracle. He had cast out a legion of demons from a man that had been so tormented by them that he was forever crying out and cutting himself. Any attempt to restrain him had failed. So the people of the town avoided him as he roamed the graveyard and mountains near the city. Jesus came along and had compassion on the man. He cast out the demons who then entered a herd of pigs causing them to run into the sea to their deaths.
You would expect the people to be angry at their loss of livestock and income at such a turn of events, but that isn’t what the Bible says happened. It says that when the witnesses to what happened told the other townspeople, they were afraid and begged Jesus to leave their region. I’ve always wondered at that. It would seem that if they weren’t angry at him for the loss of the pigs that they would be grateful that a legion of demons had been sent away from this neighbor of theirs, and by nature of his proximity to their families and homes, had been afflicting them as well. But instead of offering their thanks and praise, they ran Jesus out of town.
Results of letting fear rule
Recently have I started to see this story in a new light. I realized people are afraid of what they can’t control and what they don’t understand. Things like homelessness, human trafficking, divorcees, single moms, low income families. These problems don’t have easy answers. Dealing with people in difficult circumstances can be draining, costly and even dangerous. So instead of showing them the love of Jesus and letting loose the power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts as we minister to them, we turn away, avert our eyes, come up with excuses not to help, turn the channel on the news broadcast, or even blame them for being in such a mess. We do what the people of the Gadarenes did—we ask Jesus to leave us alone.
What are you afraid of?
So I wonder—what are you afraid of? What is it that you feel motivated by the Holy Spirit to do, but that you aren’t sure what might happen if you try? Is there something you’ve always wanted to attempt, but never felt like you were qualified or the time was right? Jesus wants to do amazing things through us to change our lives and those in our communities. We have to let Him work through our fear. We have to invite Him into the mess and let His Spirit cast out the inner demons keeping us trapped in complacency.
Face your fears with Jesus
Let Jesus bring life and healing into your fears. Can you imagine what other miracles the people of that town missed out on because they were afraid? Don’t be like them. Face your fears and let Jesus have His way with them.
by donyadunlap | Aug 3, 2012 | Guest Posts, Making a Difference
Susie Finney is a full time missionary with Youth With A Mission in Tyler, TX, working with the School of the Bible. When she’s not busy teaching or hanging out with her Bible students, she blogs, reads, and goes to as many Christian concerts as possible. I am thrilled to have her share her story of how God changed her heart and life with us today as part of our release week party for Wrecked: When a Broken World Slams into Your Comfortable Life. You can follow Susie on her blog or on Twitter:
Twitter: @missionsgirl
Nepal – Photo by Karna Deshar
It was July 2009, and I was very, very far from home.
They sometimes walked for miles to come to our seminar. Men and women who had experienced the challenges of living in a predominantly Hindu country, where the Christian population was very small. I met men and women in Nepal who had done jail time for the “crime” of being Christians. People who had been beaten and exiled from their village for their faith. And here I was, an American girl in her late twenties, looking and feeling very out of place in Nepal. I’d never experienced persecution beyond maybe someone rolling their eyes at me. I’d certainly never been kicked out of town for my beliefs.
The one statement that has always stuck with me from my Nepal outreach was during the last day of our second Bible seminar, held in the city of Pokhera. They asked some of the seminar participants to share feedback from the week-long seminar. One man stood up and started to speak through an interpreter. “I became a believer five years ago, but always wondered whether or not I was following the true God, and now I know.”
The theme verse of our seminar was John 17:3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”, but his statement was significant not only for that, but because he came from a Hindu background and culture of millions of gods and goddesses. Why should someone choose to follow Jesus and Jesus alone? What made him unique and to be worshiped rather than all the other options available at the shrines we saw at virtually every corner?
The thing that cemented this man’s faith was digging in to the scriptures and seeing what they said about what God is like-His nature and character, always trustworthy and true. It wasn’t based on feelings or an arbitrary view of an unstable god who could change on a whim.
Three years have come and gone since my trip to Nepal. I haven’t been out of the U.S. since then, and have spent most of my time at the YWAM base here in Tyler, TX. But I will never forget the people I met during my month in Nepal. My perspective changed after meeting people who had suffered for their faith, and people who came from a very different perspective than my own, yet we were bound together by love of the same Lord.
At the moment I don’t get out and travel much, but I am still a missionary. My time in Nepal was simply another confirmation of the power of God’s Word, and the privilege of getting to teach it and watch as people’s lives change never gets old, whether here in the States or halfway across the world. It is so vital to understand what scripture says about God, about Who He really is. I guess you could say that that trip reoriented my perspective on the world in that way.
How about you? What is one experience you’ve had that has changed the way you view the world around you and what is most important to you?
If you buy Wrecked by tomorrow, August 4, you’ll get over $158 worth of free resources when you scan and email your receipt to
wrecked@goinswriter.com. Click here to purchase your copy on
Amazon. (Disregard the notice that the book is out of stock. There is an error with the page.) The book is currently being offered at $9.90 and is worth every penny and more. What additional awesomeness will $9.90 get you? Here are the resources you will receive:
- All electronic versions of the book, including Nook, Kindle, and PDF for you to read on the device of your choosing (a $31.47 collection).
- Advance download of the unabridged audiobook — three months before anyone else will be able to buy it ($29.99 value).
- The 10-week “action guide” for group or individual study (an exclusive guide valued at $12.99).
- A complimentary copy of Jeff’s latest eBook, You Are a Writer, an Amazon bestseller — in Nook, Kindle, and PDF formats (a $14.97 value).
- Free download of my hour-long audio program, The Writer’s Studio, plus a companion worksheet (a $19.98 value) .
- 50% off Jeff’s upcoming online writing course, Tribe Writers (a value of $49.50).
That’s over $158.00 in free stuff for a book that retails at $13.99. So even if you don’t like it (which I can’t even imagine), you’re going to get a great deal.
by donyadunlap | Aug 1, 2012 | Making a Difference
I am so excited to announce that Wrecked: When a Broken World Slams into your Comfortable Life is finally available for purchase!
If you buy the book between now and August 4, you’ll get over $158 worth of free resources when you scan and email your receipt to wrecked@goinswriter.com. Click here to purchase your copy on Amazon. (Disregard the notice that the book is out of stock. There is an error with the page.) The book is currently being offered at $9.90 and is worth every penny and more. What additional awesomeness will $9.90 get you? Here are the resources you will receive:
- All electronic versions of the book, including Nook, Kindle, and PDF for you to read on the device of your choosing (a $31.47 collection).
- Advance download of the unabridged audiobook — three months before anyone else will be able to buy it ($29.99 value).
- The 10-week “action guide” for group or individual study (an exclusive guide valued at $12.99).
- A complimentary copy of Jeff’s latest eBook, You Are a Writer, an Amazon bestseller — in Nook, Kindle, and PDF formats (a $14.97 value).
- Free download of my hour-long audio program, The Writer’s Studio, plus a companion worksheet (a $19.98 value) .
- 50% off Jeff’s upcoming online writing course, Tribe Writers (a value of $49.50).
That’s over $158.00 in free stuff for a book that retails at $13.99. So even if you don’t like it (which I can’t even imagine), you’re going to get a great deal.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from Wrecked:
“Our brokenheartedness at the injustices we witness is what gives us compassion. So when we rush past these messy and uncomfortable moments, we take away the experiences that teach us mercy.”
“We’ve believed a lie. We’ve been told life is about us. That if we work hard enough, save enough money, and buy enough stuff, we will eventually be happy. Many of us have done just that and we are anything but happy…we are left wondering what to believe. We know something is missing; we just don’t know what it is.”
“We find our vocations not by focusing on ourselves, but by focusing on others.”
Click here to read my review on the You Are Project.
Click here to read my review on Amazon.
