afraid? of what?

this post is a bit off from what my previous posts have been about, and i'll get back on topic on monday...

i used to be afraid. afraid that if i voiced what God was speaking to me to others that i would then be held to a higher standard. afraid that it would be a standard i couldn't live up to. afraid that the real me wouldn't match up to the perceived me. afraid of being a hypocrite.

i think that fear crippled me for a long time. i am far from perfect. and then i realized, my greatest fear stemmed from opinion. i was opinion-driven. my opinion of myself, other's opinions of me.

and that fear, coupled with the fact that i had no clue of what God has planned for me life... well, i was afraid.

my question is, how can you fail if you don't know what you're doing in the first place? sometimes i wish that someone would come walking through the door and tell me how to do this.

i have begun talking with a new friend lately and she has been challenging me, pushing me. i said it before, but i'll say it again, dennae, your salt makes me thirsty. i was on the phone with her today and discovered where my true joy and happiness stem from. in short, where my satisfaction lies.

yes, i enjoy some temporal things. a good movie now and again is good. a walk in the woods is refreshing. an early morning jog not only keeps my body in shape, but helps me to focus on God. and that's when it hit me... my satisfaction truly comes from Him. i look at movies and see if there are any redemptive analogies to share with people about who God is. i listen for God in music. i find Him in worship, in nature. i feel at home when i am sharing the gospel. my spirit feels satisfied when i am preaching.

God has put something inside us all. He has given each of us the gift of salvation and avenues through which to share it. dennis wrote about it in his current post, how now it is easy for him to transition from asking about a person's financial plan to asking about their eternal plan. if we hold inside of us what God is saying because we are afraid of someone thinking too highly of us and holding us to a higher standard, then we will lose what it is He has put inside of us.

at first, it will be as jeremiah describes, a fire shut up in our bones, and as elihu describes, like new wine in a new wine skin, we have to speak to find our release. but if we continue to hide it and justify our fear by calling it "a desire to be real," the river will begin to slow into a lazy creek. and the lazy creek will turn to stagnant pond.

that's not what i want for my life. it's not a question of asking if i can afford to be real. i am real. i am as real in my mistakes as i am in my triumphs.

am i still afraid? not like i was. i no longer fear the idea of a higher standard. i now know that living to a higher standard challenges me to live a "Godward" life. to put it in the most simple words i can think of, if what i do challenges another person to run hard after God, then i have succeeded. not i, but Christ in me.

for the world-wide renown of His sovereign glory...