Feathers, Fear, IF:Gathering and Where I’ve Been

Well, hello there, friends. Begging grace for announcing I’m moving forward with a podcast and then falling off the face of the blogosphere.  If you missed me, you might have guessed that I’ve been busy plugging away at the podcast and if so, you’d be a little right.

But I have a confession to make.

After I posted the last post with the name, artwork and intro, I became paralyzed with fear. In fact, I think the Lord prompted me to write about it then just so I couldn’t back out since I told you about it.  I became overwhelmed with doubt and questions.  Who was going to listen anyway? Who would sign up to do it? Lord, you do know I’m terrible at conversation, right?  Why me, Lord, I’m very sure you have the wrong person!  I even doubted the original call. The Serpent’s words from the garden echoed in my  mind, “Did God really say….” In fact, I told several people that had I not announced it, I would have talked myself right out of it.

I spent the week after my last post in St. Louis, Missouri on a business trip.  I had had lots of thoughts of being able to work on the podcast in the evenings at the hotel after work before all this fear hit me. While I was there, I couldn’t even open my laptop to work on it.  I needed to get my schedule in order and send some emails out at the very least, but I just couldn’t.  And worse, I felt like God kept me from writing too. It was like everything was suspended so we could see whether I was going to be obedient or not.

That Thursday after I got back, I sat in tears in front of our small group and asked for prayer.  It felt so silly to be so emotional and fearful of a podcast, but I was. I was so scared.

Isn’t it like God that he would test me with a call to be obedient in faith in the midst of creating a podcast about faith? I was truly having to live out what I was going to preach one more time. God had asked me to do something that seemed scary and I was going to have to decide one more time if I trusted Him or not.

Then IF:Gathering happened that weekend.  And man, God was all over me the whole weekend about that podcast–and not in a condemning, pushy way.  The whole weekend was centered around faith and each speaker preached a section about Joshua leading the Israelites into the Promised Land. I felt like He lifted that Spirit of Fear and I was so encouraged to take my next steps of faith. And what I realized is even though I really am not qualified and there are many more people that could do a better job, God is calling me.  And even though the questions were still there, my job is to offer what little bit of faith I have and it’s enough. I don’t have to have perfect faith that lacks any doubt to be obedient.

I left the weekend so emboldened to move forward. That Sunday I did all the work I had planned while I had been out of town and within a few days had several interviews scheduled.

Then, of course, the first interview the next Tuesday flopped. The sound was off and the software failed to record my guest’s audio.  I felt a little like I had lost a battle in the war. I walked away so disheartened. And yet. I still felt so much peace about it and ready to move forward.

I’ve since had two more interviews and guys, I’m beginning to see the true power of these stories.  I really thought the faith stories were going to be about people with great faith and how to follow in their footsteps, but truly what they are about is a great God who is faithful and is able to direct our next steps.  He is so trustworthy and cares about us so much. Our vision and thoughts are so different than His.  Great faith comes from knowing Him more, not understanding the circumstance more. The more we understand His character, the more we can say yes to His calling. And the more we hear these stories, the more we will understand His character.

And so, I’m so excited to see where this goes.  And yes, I will probably return to my closet-recording-studio to interview and edit away for another few weeks. I’m really hoping to launch in the first week or so of March.

Here are some things you can pray about in the meantime:

• Pray this verse with me: God has not given me a Spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind. 1 Timothy 1:7
• Pray that I search out the right people to interview
• Pray that the right people will answer the call
• Pray that our conversations are God-honoring and rightly give Him the glory for what He’s done
• Pray that the technical tasks and logistics of launching this will be completed

Thanks so much, friends.