Interesting, God’s timing….

Last week I got a call from a gal in Alameda who asked me to come and speak at a women’s event in October.

I’ll be honest.  With all of the craziness of the weeks ahead and the immense planning and scheduling that is coming with that (Janay is coming home for a month from Cambodia (yay!) and will be traveling around meeting her supporters, family and friends), I was more than a little tempted to say no.  No would definitely have been the easiest and most convenient answer.

But, as most of you know, I am on a 90 day adventure of heart healing with Jesus.

The easiest answers are not what He’s been calling me to lately.

To make things even more curious and almost comical, the theme of the event is Be Brave.

Are you smiling with me right now?

Because that is exactly what God has been asking of me on this journey of healing and growth.  Freedom from fear.  Walking face first into old fears, eyes wide open, with courage and the promise of His presence with every timid step of progress. Literally, Being Brave.

Taking mustard seed sized faith, itty bitty trembling belief and proactively planting it in ways and places where it can begin to grow into the massive tree that God dreams for me.

It was as if God was speaking directly through this dear woman and saying, “Will you take this next step, right in the middle of your own intense learning?  Will you share at a very real level what it looks like to take My invitation to Be Brave?  Let them see what shaky steps toward courage and trust really look like.  Don’t give them platitudes.  Give them the reality of your own current experience with Me.  Tell them of my presence in the process, of how I have held you tightly with every baby step and have challenged you to take another.  Share with them how I hold you when it’s been a hard day of learning and we just cry together for a little while. Remind them of my promises to never leave them, to always love them, that I have a plan for them. Let them know that process doesn’t always look like progress but that I am constantly at work in the heart that looks to Me for guidance and help and wisdom. Tell them that I have dreams for them that they can’t even imagine.  That with every inch toward bravery they will gain confidence in Me as they begin to see glimpses of those dreams.  You have to tell them, Jana.  You just have to.  This is our next step together.”

Needless to say, I said yes. 🙂

When the timing couldn’t have seemed worse, it suddenly occurred to me that it couldn’t possibly have been any better….

Isaiah 41:10 – Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

Deuteronomy 31:6 – So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.

Jeremiah 1:8 – “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.

Matthew 14:27 – But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here!”

John 14:1 – Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 

Psalm 27:1 – The LORD is my light and my salvation– whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life– of whom shall I be afraid?

Romans 8:15 – For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “”Abba,” Father.”