Fear

No, no, this blog will not be about the short lived MTV reality series about ghost hunting. This will actually be about fear. The kind of fear that paralyzes you. The kind of fear forces you to put up defenses. The kind of fear that slowly takes over your life, even without your conscious knowledge and leaves feel slightly dead and empty.

And hopefully this blog will be about how great it is to wake up from it and start to live again.

Last month I went and gave a chapel talk at the Christian high school that I graduated from. It is always an odd experience walking those halls and seeing kids yelling in the halls and slamming their locker doors. High school, for me, like most others, was a confusing and somewhat difficult time. I didn't really know who I was, what I believed or what the hell I was going to do after I graduated. I honestly believed that everyone else had it together and I was just faking it. So I became many different people while I was there; the jock who didn't actually play in sports, the preppy who didn't want to iron his clothes, and eventually I graduated as the funny, sarcastic guy who didn't really believe in anything. So I decided to speak on this period of my life and eventually how I found who I really was in Jesus.

I was set. I had written my talk ahead of time (a true feat for me!). So the night before when I practiced it for my parents, I knew that it was going to go well and that all of my former teachers would have no choice but to adore me. So I practiced the talk and my parents did enjoy it. They laughed when they were supposed to laugh, they gave sympathetic nods when they were supposed to sympathetically nod. Everything was great except the fact that I hated the talk. Loathed it. Threw away the outline hated it.

That night I left my parents house having no idea what had gone wrong, what was so bad about the talk? I went and drank coffee and prayed (two things that go amazingly well together) and felt God tell me not to be a clown.

A clown?

I was at first a little angry. I am most certainly not a clown. Right? Right? Maybe I am not. Most of the time. But the more I prayed and reflected, I realized that I am indeed very clown like when I feel the need to protect myself. At my high school, with all of those former teachers watching, in the gym where I used to agonize where the "right" place to sit was, I had become a clown. I had decided to not speak with conviction about the great value of following Jesus, but instead to speak on my sense of humor. To make fun of myself and then smile a dimpled smile and hope that no one noticed that I was not living out this great identity that I was speaking about.

So when I gave the talk I tried to be honest and direct. I still made jokes, but stopped apologizing about the fact that falling Jesus is counter-cultural and can be hard. I choose to face my fears and step out in belief that doing the will of God is better than making 200 high school kids and a handful of teachers like me.

God has not let up in this whole fear thing. He has pushed me to be more faithful and stop apologizing about fundraising. He has pushed me to re-establish friendships with people I have lost touch with. He has asked me to call out the sin I see in myself and in those around me. Specifically He has challenged me to actually teach and lead and care a lot more about His will then making everyone my biggest fan.

It is so freeing.

My palms have been sweaty. I have pushed send on emails and had the thought "what did I just do?". But it has felt like freedom.

Too often I think that all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike live as though Jesus called us to Bake Sales and Sunday morning sermons. That the greatest challenge that we will ever face is trying think "pure thoughts" in a fallen world. Yet when we actually read and react to the challenges that Jesus lays before us, we see that Jesus calls to nothing less than to partner with Him to save the entire world. To risk a lot more than funny looks and the occasional strained friendship.

This in not the first time in my life that fear has stopped all of my momentum. But the reality is that when I have sought Jesus and been willing to follow Him in the places that scare me most, my life has been the most exciting and costly times of my life.

They have also been the times I have felt most alive.