Things have been lining up this weekend. God is giving me the same message over and over again.

Turn from fear to faith.

I like to say that I’m not a “scared freshmen” anymore, but the truth is, I think I’m just a scared person. Maybe I’m better at hiding it now, but deep down I still think that talking to people - especially when it comes to conversations about religion - is completely terrifying. But why am I so scared? It’s because I fear their judgment and rejection. I fear that once I reveal that I’m a Christian, they’ll start to question all my motives for speaking to them. That they’ll start to analyze every little thing I do. That when I mess up, they’ll attribute my mistakes to Christianity. That they’ll start thinking that I’m hypocritical and judgmental. And of course, I’m scared of negative reactions. Last year, someone I’d been friends with and known for months found out I was a Christian and made it pretty clear what he thought about it. I just couldn’t understand how his view of me could change just because of my religion. I was still the same person he’d been hanging out with, wasn’t I?

I can’t let these fears hold me back anymore. I look at the reasons why I’m scared, and they all revolve around me. My motives, my actions, my mistakes, my attitude. But nothing is really ever about me. I need to have complete faith in God. If I completely trusted him and believed in his power, I wouldn’t be concerned about these things. I would be wholly content in his love. I would have faith that no matter how badly I mess up these interactions, he is still in them and he can still work through me. It’s like I think I have the power to completely turn someone off from Christianity forever. God can fix any mistake that I make. So instead of holding back and hiding because I’m afraid, I just need to step out and let God work through me. 

“There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear,” 1 John 4:18