Living Courageously: You Can Face Anything, Just Do It Afraid (6 page)

The things that Jesus experienced in His humanity equipped Him as a merciful high priest who could sympathize with the weaknesses and needs of all people. Sometimes we must go through things in order to fully understand the difficulties that others experience. I believe that each thing we go through helps equip us for our next challenge. Having experience and going through things also help us live courageously. We learn that we can endure difficulties, and that knowledge helps us not to fear future endeavors.

So far we see that we are: (1) Supernaturally equipped by God for our task. (2) Equipped through knowledge of God’s Word. (3) Equipped through the experiences we have in life. Let it suffice to say that you are able to do whatever God leads you to do; God knows it, but you need to know it too. If you doubt yourself, then you are likely not to step out, but to draw back in timidity and fear.

Satan offers us fear, but God offers us courage. Which one will you take?

The men of Israel were in a battle with the Benjamites and the men of Gibeah, and at the end of the first day of battle they had lost 22,000 men. After a solid defeat it is even more difficult to be courageous than it was previously. But the Israelites “took courage and strengthened themselves” and positioned themselves for the next battle the same as the day before. The story goes on to say that the second day they lost 18,000 men. Wow! They were being courageous and they were still losing the battle; however, they did not give up. They continued to seek God and go again to battle, and ultimately they did defeat their enemy. I am excited and encouraged by people who refuse to give up!

The men of Israel had a choice to make after their first defeat. Would they take courage or take fear? Would they believe that
with God they wouldn’t fail and they could try again, or would they take the easy way out and just give up? It takes courage to keep pressing on when you have already experienced failure, but they did it and ended up victorious. Many people who live unfulfilled lives do so because they let one or two failures defeat them. I like to say that we are not failures just because we fail at something. Nobody is a failure until they quit trying.

The men of Israel succeeded for three reasons: (1) God was on their side. (2) They took courage. (3) They strengthened themselves. How did they strengthen themselves? I can only imagine since I wasn’t there, but I think they prayed, remembered God’s word to them, encouraged one another, and had a good talk with themselves. Sometimes we have to tell ourselves,
I will not give up, and I will succeed.
You might even have to say it repeatedly until it sinks in to your consciousness.

A previous loss may discourage us, but people can also discourage us at times. They look at us in the natural, or as we are, and sometimes they discourage us because they just don’t see what God sees. But God sees beyond what we are right now, and He sees what we can be with His help. Don’t take the fear that Satan offers you, because if you do, you are taking a destructive force into your life that weakens and disables you. Take courage and strengthen yourself in the Lord!

Can we catch courage? At first, no; initially, courage must be chosen, but once we get a taste of what courage feels like and we see
the benefits it brings, courage becomes contagious! It may start in one area of our life and then spread to all areas. I think the first truly courageous act I did was to finally decide that with God’s help I could overcome my painfully horrible past. I decided to stop being a victim and to stop feeling sorry for myself. Once I made that bold decision, courage began to spread through my entire life. Yes, I still had to choose it each time I needed it, but once I had tasted courage, I couldn’t stomach fear anymore. Why would anyone choose to live a weak, timid, impotent life after they have experienced the benefits of courage? Usually they won’t. They will go from courage to courage and do great things for the glory and honor of God.

The first time I spoke in front of what I thought was a large gathering of people (about 900), I was very afraid. So afraid, in fact, that fear had squeezed my throat shut, and when I initially tried to speak, only a faint squeak came out of me. But I did take courage and I strengthened myself and tried again and was able to speak. That first time ended up being successful. I saw the benefits of courage, and since then I have spoken in front of as many as half a million people at one time in an open-air crusade in India with no fear at all. At this point in my life I am not hesitant to take advantage of any opportunity that God puts in front of me, because I know for certain that if God calls me to do it, He will equip me also. Am I naturally brave? Not really! I have just let courage become contagious in my life. I am addicted to it at this point, and cannot imagine being tormented by fear day and night as I once was. If you are controlled by fear, or if you feel that you have lost opportunities because of it, the good news is that you too can take courage and start enjoying the new opportunities that God will send your way.

I also believe that other people are encouraged as they see us
being courageous. They see the joy we have, the power we walk in, and the victory we experience, and they want the same thing. Of course they will have to choose courage, because it won’t just be grafted into them, but we do tend to become like the people we are around. If you want more courage, then spend time with people who are courageous and stop spending excessive time with fearful, defeated people.

After God called Gideon to lead His people into victory, and Gideon had finally worked through his own fears and accepted the challenge, the time came when he had to separate himself from other fearful men in order to win the battle.

These numbers give us some insight into how many fearful people there are compared to those with courage. Gideon was going to be more powerful with a few courageous men than with a lot of men, most of whom were fearful. Understanding this Scripture has helped me in my own ministry to understand that no matter how fond I am of someone, or how much I don’t want to hurt their feelings, I simply cannot do all that God wants me to do with fearful people by my side.

I am willing to work with those who are fearful to help them overcome their fears, but if they persist in being excessively timid, I have to put them in a position where courage is not needed.

For example, when I leave for a trip to a third-world country that has a history of being dangerous, I use God’s wisdom and have no fear of going. But the team I take with me must also be courageous. I cannot afford to go into spiritually volatile places with fear. If I did, the devil would recognize my fear and it would open a door for him. We must maintain a high level of confidence all the way through a project if we plan to be successful.

Even if you have suffered setbacks, don’t let them fill you with fear. Shake off the disappointment and get reappointed for victory!

I’ve read that insecurity is defined as a feeling of general unease or nervousness that may be triggered by perceiving oneself to be vulnerable in some way, or a sense of instability that threatens one’s self-image. It is a feeling or belief that we are not acceptable and that we are not what we ought to be. It is a fear that we will fail at an important time and everyone will discover that we have no value. Some people are a little insecure and perhaps only in one or two areas, but other people are almost crippled with insecurity and it shows up in everything they try to do.

Nearly every person in this world suffers from some form of insecurity. Whether it’s physical, emotional, or spiritual, insecurity is rampant. We might even say that we have an epidemic of insecure people in society today. In reality there is only one true form of permanent security, and His name is Jesus. He is the only one who never changes and He is the only one we can depend on to be present when we need Him. We can be secure in Him and His unconditional love for us.

In this section I will quote several Scriptures, and I suggest that you don’t skip over them. I am including them because I truly believe that God’s Word has power that will comfort us and set us free from fear and insecurity.

You are the beloved of the Lord! You will have to choose to believe that before any true progress can be made toward enjoying a fearless and secure life. The unconditional love of God is the cure for everything that ails us. It heals broken hearts and souls that are wounded from past abuse. It sets us free from comparison and competition, and it gives us the confidence to be the person that God created us to be. Only in the love of God can we find true security.

Everyone wants to be loved unconditionally. They want to be loved for who they are and not merely for what they do. I will admit that in the world it is difficult (but not impossible) to find that kind of pure, unselfish love, but we can find it abundantly and freely in Jesus. It is referred to as “perfect” love.

People who are insecure have great difficulty fully believing that God can love them perfectly, completely, and forever. That is because they feel undeserving of love in their imperfect state, and they have not yet learned that God’s love is a gift of His grace and not something they can earn or deserve.

How can we believe it? I believe a lot of things about God’s promises because I want to. I choose to because believing is what produces peace and joy in my life. I lived many years filled with doubt and unbelief, waiting for some kind of proof that God and His promises were real, and it only produced fear and misery. You can also wait for some proof, which you may never get, or you can accept God’s love by faith and begin your journey of wholeness. The faith I have in my heart has become more real to me than any circumstance ever could. Circumstances can quickly and frequently change. If I based God’s love on circumstance, one day it appears He loves me and then the next it may seem He doesn’t. But when I receive it by faith, it is always mine and can never be taken away from me unless I decide to let it go. This might sound overly simplified, but I believe that we can choose to believe what we want to believe, so why not believe something that will benefit you?

Believe that God loves you. Set your mind and keep it set on the fact that God loves you, not because you deserve it, but because He is love and loving us is simply what He does. There is never a moment in your life when God doesn’t love you! He might be displeased with our behavior at times, but His love for us is constant and uninterrupted.

Take all the time you need to bask in the love of God. Jesus said, “Abide in My love” (see John 15:10), and that means live, dwell, and remain in it at all times. Don’t let anything separate
you from the love of God. The apostle Paul teaches us to get rooted and grounded in the love of God.

Yes, it is only the unconditional love of God that destroys our insecurity and makes us feel secure in Him. Do you have deep roots in the love of God? Roots deep enough to take you through every storm in life without ever wondering whether or not God loves you? I pray that you do, but if you don’t, you can get very excited because God is working in your life right now, and He is never going to let you go! God is renewing your mind as you read this book, and I believe it is going to help you freely receive God’s love in a greater measure than ever before. With God’s help we are never stuck anywhere with no way out. No matter how long you may have suffered with insecurity, God’s healing and deliverance is available for you. You are on your way to freedom!

I don’t believe that we are born insecure, but it doesn’t seem to take very long for insecurity to rear its ugly head. What happens? All it takes are a few sad experiences of being made to feel that there is something wrong with us and the seeds of tormenting insecurity are sown.

A young girl has acne on her face, but her best friend has beautiful, clear skin. A young boy is hefty and very tall; he towers
over all of his skinny, average-height friends. A nine-year-old girl feels that it is her fault that Mom and Dad got a divorce. A boy with a learning disability doesn’t do well in school and he is accused of not reaching his potential simply because everyone has failed to recognize the real problem. A young boy stutters terribly and other children who can often be cruel make fun of him. A woman is married to the man of her dreams and she is devoted to him. She discovers he has been having an affair with another woman, and he leaves her with their two children to care for by herself. A man has worked for a company for 20 years, then without warning he is let go and finds himself unemployed and unable to find a job.

Insecurity can come from any of these types of things and thousands of other things. Satan, the author of fear, is also the author of insecurity, which is in reality a fear that we are not acceptable and that we won’t be taken care of.

Although it is good to get to the root of our insecurities to help us understand them better, it is not vital in recovering from them. Some people are extremely insecure and they have no idea why. They had great parents, a good school experience, lots of friends, earned good grades, and had many other pleasant experiences, but secretly they suffer terribly with feelings of inferiority. A person may even live a double life. She appears to be happy to those around her, but in her secret life she has an eating disorder, hates herself, and always feels insecure. The happy face she puts on is a mask that she wears, and she has everyone fooled but herself and the God who created her. Unless these types of problems are confronted, they may develop into more serious anxiety disorders.

Satan’s goal is to make us dissatisfied with ourselves and then drive us to unhealthy comparisons with other people. He wants us to waste our lives trying to change ourselves into someone
else rather than embrace the amazing person God intends us to be. Resist him at the onset of insecurity! If you have believed all kinds of negative things about yourself and suffered with insecurity, why not say good-bye to insecurity and begin your journey toward safe, confident, and secure living right now. Make a bold declaration out of your mouth and say,
“I resist insecurity. I resist the devil who is the root of insecurity and fear, and I submit myself to God’s unconditional love and healing.”
By faith, receive the free grace of God that is His undeserved favor and power to change.

Grace is always available for us in any situation that we encounter in life. It will lift us up and enable us to be successful in all that we need to do. Please believe that you do not have to continue suffering with insecurity. You can be the bold, courageous person that God intends you to be.

In addition to being fearful, some of the symptoms of insecurity are defensiveness, being overly competitive, materialistic, self-promoting, manipulative, controlling and bullying, jealousy and excessive joking, just to mention a few.

Insecure people tend to be very sensitive to any kind of critique, and their first impulse is to defend themselves and try to convince others that they are unflawed.

They may talk excessively about themselves and what they are doing and accomplishing in an effort to prove that they have value.
They may feel threatened by others, and especially those who are secure, so they attempt to stay in control of every situation. In a desperate effort to appear powerful, they bully, manipulate, and control.

An insecure person may seek to own a lot of things because it makes them feel important. They are often very competitive. Their goal is to be number one in all things because it makes them feel better than other people. But their behavior only showcases their insecurities rather than hiding them as they had hoped. They work so hard at convincing people they are valuable that it wears them out mentally, emotionally, and physically. I know this is true because I was once very insecure, and although I didn’t realize it at the time, I was constantly working and trying to prove to myself and everyone else that I was okay.

I don’t believe any person is truly free until they have no need to impress anyone else. It feels so good to be free from the agony of insecurity and have nothing to prove.

What are you clinging to for your security? How stable is it? Are you willing to let it go and totally trust in God? Just so there is no misunderstanding, I am not saying that we should not trust people, employers, banks, or other things that may help us in life, but the truth is that we have no guarantee that they won’t fail. The only lifetime guarantee we can have is found in Jesus.

We can trust other things, but we dare not give them the trust
that belongs only to the Lord. I trust my husband and I depend on him, but I also know that as long as I have God, I could go on in life even if something happened to Dave. I trust my friends, but I have been deeply hurt by other friends whom I have trusted in the past, so I don’t trust them to the point of putting all of my confidence in them. I realize that they could disappoint me, but as long as I have God, I will recover and go on.

I have money in the bank, and I have done my best to choose a bank with a great reputation because I don’t want to lose my money, but even if I did, I know I could still be happy. There was a time when I didn’t have the money I have now and I was happy then, and I would survive joyfully without it again if I had to. We must learn to enjoy things without developing too strong of an attachment to them. Truthfully, the world and all that is in it is shaky, and we will only end up hurt and disappointed if we put our trust in it.
Anything that we think we need in order to be happy, other than God, is something the devil can use against us!

God often shakes the worldly things that we have our trust in. He does it in order to get us redirected toward Him. He is doing us a huge favor when He does this because sometimes we can have too much of our trust in things and not even realize it.

Are you trusting in yourself? We all do until we learn that due to the inherent weakness of the flesh, we will always end up disappointed in ourselves. We often feel that we can’t trust anyone except ourselves, so we try desperately to take care of ourselves, and when we do we miss out on the amazing protection of God. After many years of being in self-protection mode and experiencing a lot of fear, I finally retired from self-care and turned the task
over to God. What a relief to discover that if I cast my care on Him, He will take care of me (see 1 Peter 5:7).

We may seek to feel secure in our own self-righteousness. We try to do the right thing so we can feel good about ourselves, but that is not God’s plan. God wants us to feel good about ourselves, not merely because we do the right thing, but because He loves us and has made us right with Him through Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians of how he once trusted in his own righteousness for his worth and value. He said that he had grounds to rely on himself more than any man. He kept the law and was a very religious man. He was from the right neighborhood, had the right education, the right friends and connections. He even said that it was difficult to find anything wrong with him (see Philippians 3:4–6). He was smug in his own self-righteousness until God revealed to him that true righteousness is only found through Christ. After receiving that revelation from God, he declared that everything he thought he had before was all rubbish compared to knowing Christ Jesus as his Lord. He wanted to be found and known as in Christ, not having any self-achieved righteousness based on his own ability (see Philippians 3:8–9). When we make this transition from trusting ourselves to trusting God, we enjoy a freedom and a type of rest that we have never known before.