Sunday, February 22, 2009

Real Quick

I can't wait to jump back into blogland this week and catch up with you. :) I have missed you so much, but God has had other plans for me the last week. (And I wouldn't have missed it for the world!)

We got home Friday afternoon and I immediately had to prepare for a weekend planning/retreat time with Freedom's Call. Our speaker is in town and we had a marathon time together that will wrap up at 2:00 today. I could not wait to share this and I wanted to get it down before I got busy and the initial impact of this was over.

Okay. Deep breath...

Our pastor began a new sermon series this morning based on the book "In a Pit with Lion on a Snowy Day" by Mark.....I can't remember his last name but I'll find it.
(The scripture passage is 2 Samuel 23:20-23 if you want to check it out.)

In each and every point of this sermon God spoke something to me personally. The thing that has left me awestruck is that none of what our pastor said this morning, was new material to me. I have been journaling it, hearing it and even talking about some of it this weekend with Freedom's Call.

The point that made me want to get out of my seat and into the floor...right there in the service was point 3. Be assured I did not leave my seat, BUT IN MY MIND I WAS TOTALLY FLAT IN THAT FLOOR! Here it is:


Attempting to do something great and failing is better than doing nothing and succeeding.

Then our pastor said this:

Lion chasers are not stopped by FEAR OF FAILURE.


Ya'll. This is me on so many levels. If you've shared my life through my blog for anytime, you've probably picked up on that a little bit. I try to hide it, and God showed me this morning THAT was a pride issue. He's been beating that into me for quite sometime, but this morning it penetrated that part of my heart that has remained closed to hearing and accepting this.

I'm praising Him for not giving up on this strong willed child. (Yes mom we all heard you just say amen.)

I'm praising Him for impressing this series on my pastor's heart.

I'm praising Him for the timing of it! A couple of you know that this week, I made the decision to do something with my music that has me scared to death. Terrified actually but....

I don't want to be stopped by fear of failure anymore. This girl is going to chase that Lion and take it down.

Okay! I'm off to finish up our planning time and then to worship with our children's choirs.

Talk to you Monday!

6 comments:

Leah Adams said...

Praying for you and eagerly waiting to hear more!!

Leah

Melinda said...

Can I just tell you that this is EXACTLY what God's been working on with me??? Fear of failure, fear of looking stupid, fear of success, for crying out loud...just FEAR, that keeps me paralyzed and not moving forward with what God has plainly told me to do.

Girlfriend...THANK YOU for this word of confirmation!

Love you,
Melinda

Lindsay said...

http://www.evotional.com/
Mark Batterson.
Great Book, worth the read. Real pastor, real blog. :-)

Patty said...

Just wanted to tell you I love you, praying for you and I am emailing you about something. :)

Fran said...

AWESOME AWESOME!!!! That is way cool and just like God to flat out throw it in your sweet face. :)

I'm praying about it all Steph. And, I think you should jump out there and tackle that lion. If you know what I mean.

Hugs,
Fran

Holly said...

Our Sunday School teacher shared portions from that books before...at the time I totally wanted to read it. Later I forgot. So thank you for the reminder, Stephanie!

I am walking with you in prayer, Sister.

Much Love to you,
Holly