This small town blogger got to study ballet with the American Ballet Theatre in New York City this past summer! I packed my bags and lived the NYC dancer life for three wonderful, tiring, exciting weeks. Weeks I won't soon forget, Weeks I will treasure forever.
And in those weeks of intense living, God pressed a strong theme into my soul- be fearlessly faithful and faithfully fearless.
I went into the intensive with so much fear. I feared making the wrong choice. I feared deciding what I wanted to do with my life. I feared that I would make a fool of myself as a dancer. I feared wasting money. I feared a lot of things.
Oh, but God knew what He was doing.
On the flight to NYC, I started reading Louie Giglio's book, Goliath Must Fall. In the book, he discusses specifically how fear must fall in our lives.
Let's talk about timing here.
"Fear grips us whenever we believe that apart from, or in spite of, our best efforts, something undesirable is going to happen and we can't stop it." (page 54)
Then, to top it off, God did something fun. As I sat reading in Bryant Park, eyeing the Empire State Building every now and then, the book mentioned something very familiar. Louie Giglio started to tell a story, and the story was set in none other than the LaGuardia Airport, where I was just hours ago.
It was as if God waved His arms and said, pay attention to this. I am going to use it in your life.
"We understand that we must hear Jesus and we must see Jesus. We must keep the focus of our hearts on him. That's because hearing Jesus and seeing Jesus and focusing on Jesus builds up our faith, and faith is the antidote to fear. The opposite of fear is not being bold and courageous. The opposite of fear is faith. And faith begins by us saying, 'I have confidence in God that he is bigger than this giant.'" (page 56, emphasis mine)
That's when it began to click. If the opposite of fear is faith, then we are called to be fearless faithful and faithfully fearless.
We are invited to live fearlessly faithful lives. For although faith is the antidote to fear, it takes a little fearlessness to be faithful. It takes guts to trust God. It's not easy to be faithful when the world tells us to fearfully cling to all of our rights and pleasures.
To be fearlessly faithful is to trust God with a scary amount of faith. However, we don't fear trusting God, because we know that He is faithful. His faithfulness invites us to have faith in Him without fear. To be fearlessly faithful is trust that Jesus is worthy of all of our lives: every act of obedience, every heartfelt prayer, and every step along the way. It is courageous faith, but not faith in courage.
We are not only called to be fearlessly faithful; we are also called to be faithfully fearless. We are called to a life that is, for lack of a better word, scary. It is true that God provide for us a shelter from the storm. Sometimes, though, He tells us to go out upon the waters and have faith that He won't let us drown. Sometimes, we have to get a little wet.
We need to use faith in order to do fearless things. If not, fear will crush us before we even step outside. Jesus has given us a great commandment, a wonderful mission. It is about time that we faithfully pursued fearlessness for the sake of the kingdom of God.
The real test of faith for me in NYC came on my first Monday, the placement class, the fearful day that would determine the rest of the program. It was one of the biggest things that I feared, but that morning I began to see what being fearlessly faithful and faithfully fearless truly meant.
We are invited to live fearlessly faithful lives. For although faith is the antidote to fear, it takes a little fearlessness to be faithful. It takes guts to trust God. It's not easy to be faithful when the world tells us to fearfully cling to all of our rights and pleasures.
To be fearlessly faithful is to trust God with a scary amount of faith. However, we don't fear trusting God, because we know that He is faithful. His faithfulness invites us to have faith in Him without fear. To be fearlessly faithful is trust that Jesus is worthy of all of our lives: every act of obedience, every heartfelt prayer, and every step along the way. It is courageous faith, but not faith in courage.
We are not only called to be fearlessly faithful; we are also called to be faithfully fearless. We are called to a life that is, for lack of a better word, scary. It is true that God provide for us a shelter from the storm. Sometimes, though, He tells us to go out upon the waters and have faith that He won't let us drown. Sometimes, we have to get a little wet.
We need to use faith in order to do fearless things. If not, fear will crush us before we even step outside. Jesus has given us a great commandment, a wonderful mission. It is about time that we faithfully pursued fearlessness for the sake of the kingdom of God.
The real test of faith for me in NYC came on my first Monday, the placement class, the fearful day that would determine the rest of the program. It was one of the biggest things that I feared, but that morning I began to see what being fearlessly faithful and faithfully fearless truly meant.
I walked into that placement class and actually had fun. Joy filled my heart and replaced competition with compassion and comparison with confidence. Suddenly, I felt free. Faith grew in my heart that day.
And the next day.
And the next day.
Faithfulness isn't a one day decision or a seasonal activity. It is an every day, step-by-step kind of lifestyle. Oh, how I need daily reminders to be faithful.
So this is my reminder for myself and maybe for you, too, dear reader. Will we accept the challenge to live fearlessly faithful and faithfully fearless? Will we be courageous with the amount of faith we place in trustworthy Jesus? Will we live boldly because of our faith in Jesus?
Let's grab faith and one hand and fearlessness in the other and dance on forward. I don't think that we will look back from this kind of life.
Much love,
Princess Hannah
