Taking away the power of fear

Seth Godin writes,

I'm afraid of that.

If you can say this out loud, when you've been holding back, avoiding your confrontation with the truth, you will free yourself to do something important. Saying it takes away the power of the fear.

On the other hand, if you say it 8 times or 11 times or every time, you're using the label to reinforce your fear, creating an easy escape hatch to avoid doing something important. Saying it amplifies the fear.

The brave thing is to find the unspeakable fear and speak it. And to stop rehearsing the easy fears that have become habits.

Making friends with butterflies

Are you sitting alone in the dark on the back rows of life? That's how Jennie Allen described herself before she learned not to worry about what people thought of her.

Getting butterflies:

If you ever want to do anything of significance, you have to learn to love the sick tense feeling in your belly instead of hate it. It doesn’t seem to ever leave me these days. So I am making the butterflies my friends.

Do you want to be liked or do you want to actually do something significant with this life? Let pleasing God become bigger than pleasing people.

The back row was comfortable, it was easy, it was safe. But I am over comfortable, easy and safe. Especially when forever stretches out before us and people’s lives and freedoms are at stake. I suggest we get on with it. Let’s risk something for God’s glory and for other’s good.

Face your worst fears, friends, and they start to go away.

Thanks to Ann Voskamp for linking to this piece.