Lessons In Faith (Or, How I’m Learning Not to Be Scared S**tless)

When I have the opportunity to share with a new friend about our family’s journey into creativity–particularly, how we left everything behind in one place and went to a new place with no guaranteed income, determined to try and make a place for ourselves by doing what we love–a common response is, “Wow. You guys are so brave!”

I generally chuckle under my breath. Bull crap, I think to myself.

The reality is, I’m probably the least likely candidate to be on a journey like this. Control freaks don’t handle change well, much less change fraught with uncertainty. We’d spent ten years fighting, warring, trying to find a place of stability, and just when we thought we’d found it, we’re gonna pull up stakes and start again? I seriously wouldn’t have done it except I knew that we were dying inside where we were. What some people call bravery, I call desperation. It’s not bravery to leap from a burning building. That’s how it felt. We took the leap because the only other option was to stay and burn.

The point is, I’m coming to realize I’ve spent most of my life on the verge of panic. I fight fear on so many levels, most of all the fear that somehow life will deal me a hand I can’t handle, or that the good things in my life will be taken from me. That I will be sabotaged. Disappointed. Disillusioned. Overwhelmed. Exposed as incapable or incompetent.

Fear of the other shoe dropping. That’s a huge one. Things have gone very well for us here on many levels, but I guess life has so conditioned me that I spend way too much time fretting over the possibility of losing it all, and way too little time actually enjoying the blessings.

So why would God lead such a fearful person down such an uncertain path?

I think the answer is actually pretty apparent.

Now, I know some people who live in a virtual prison to their fears, and simply refuse to try and break out. They stay well within their comfort zones, and unfortunately those comfort zones get smaller and smaller. But I suppose there’s this part of me that is unsatisfied with that way of life; I actually do want to get better. I’m at least self-aware enough to know that fear robs me of the richness of life, and I want that full life. The only way that can happen, I think, is to get into repeated situations where things are not in your control, where you simply must trust yourself to the hand of God. Faith (that is, trust) is a learned process. It doesn’t get stronger unless it is forced to exercise. Maybe that’s why I’m on a journey like this one. It puts me in a position where my only real option is to trust.

*Sigh* You’d think I’d get it by now.

That said, I do see the hand of God guiding us. He has blessed us in this new place, given us opportunities, possibilities, room to grow. Fresh hope for the future. But every once in awhile a life situation happens that puts me into immediate panic, almost as if to say, “See, there’s still some fear you need to deal with.” Almost always, that situation resolves itself, and I later feel stupid for how fearful I was. And then another situation will arise, and I’ll do the same thing. It’s like a reflex.

And yet, God in His wisdom and patience continues to give me, um, opportunities to trust Him. And every time I come to that place of trust, He reveals Himself.

While it may feel at times like I’m making no progress on this at all, with every victory, with every experience of encountering God in those moments, a history is being built. When those moments of panic set in, I have more and more examples of God’s faithfulness to draw from. And, I think, I transition from the place of fear to the place of faith a little more quickly and easily.

That’s progress. Right?

So I think these lessons in faith–both in big life changes and small life situations–are continuing to build me as a person, revealing the areas where I am still in fear, and helping me learn to trust. Slowly, more and more, I’m beginning to embrace and enjoy the richness of this life He has given me.