FreelySHEcould Podcast
The goal is to create a community of women who are encouraged, inspired, and empowered to live out their faith in the world.
FreelySHEcould Podcast
Episode 7: Embracing Fear: Finding Jesus in Our Weakness
Fear can be an overwhelming emotion, but it can also be a stepping stone to deeper faith and understanding. Join us as we explore the intricate relationship between fear, community, and faith in our latest episode. The host shares personal insights and heartfelt stories about navigating fear while relying on Jesus for strength and guidance. We discuss the importance of having a supportive community around us, providing anecdotes that reveal how connection can play a crucial role in healing.
Scriptural reflections are pivotal in this conversation, particularly focusing on the promise found in Isaiah 43: fear not, for I have redeemed you. This verse serves as a powerful reminder that in our most challenging moments, we are not alone. Practical tips are offered throughout the episode, emphasizing how listeners can invite Jesus into their fears and encourage others to do the same.
Throughout the dialogue, we also touch on popular culture, with references to the movie "Inside Out," which brilliantly depicts fear's role in our emotional landscape. Historical figures such as Winston Churchill provide inspiring examples of confronting fear in times of uncertainty. Ultimately, this episode calls listeners to be proactive, facing their fears with courage and faith.
If you're seeking encouragement and a sense of community, this episode is for you. Join us, and let’s deepen our understanding of faith together. Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review! Your journey through fear can lead to a lifetime of freedom and joy.
Hi everyone and welcome to the Freely she Could Podcast. This podcast is a platform where stories, advice, insight and experiences will be shared for women to grow in their relationship with Jesus and others. I'm your host, soli, and I'm excited to be here with you On this podcast. We'll talk about faith, family, health, work and relationships, and so much more. The goal is to create a community of women who are encouraged, inspired and empowered to live out their faith in the world. I believe that when women come together and share their stories, we can make a difference. So, whether you're new here or you've been walking with Jesus for years, I hope you'll join us in this journey and I'm so glad you're with us. What's up guys? Welcome back to Freely she Could podcast. I'm so glad to be back here with you after two weeks of not uploading, and that's because life just got a bit crazy. I'm sure you have experienced that in your lives as well, when sometimes everything everywhere all at once hits the fan, and that is definitely what happened in my life. But I really was able to learn how to navigate well and in a healthy way and times when it was not so healthy. But this is where I think community comes in and inviting them into your process, because I really had amazing women around me and my husband who just came around and rallied and said all right, I'm in it with you, let's set something up, let's touch base, let's pray, let's get dinner. Let me just send a text check in on you, right? The different kinds of soups that I had talked about in a couple episodes back. If you haven't listened to it and you have no idea why I'm bringing up soup, make sure you go back and check out those previous podcast episodes. It'd be awesome just to understand why I'm talking about soup in the first place. Anyway, so so glad to be back here and as I was praying and meditating of what the next series could look like and what to really just navigate or what's the trajectory of where we're going really just navigate or what's the trajectory of where we're going I really felt like the Lord was leading in emotions, different types of primary emotions and what it looks like to invite Jesus into it Just things that I had to navigate through in my personal experience. But also, how do you invite community into it? Because that's what our last series was about as well. Invite community into it, because that's what our last series was about as well, and so let's just get right into it.
Speaker 1:This episode, we're going to talk about fear. Fear is such a big emotion. Right, there's healthy fear, but there's also fear that can be sometimes irrational, right, and also that paralyzes you from taking steps forward. And again, processing discipleship with the Lord is not a destination. It is a journey, it's a process. We all need mercy and grace. We also need to extend mercy and grace to others as well. But what does it look like to find peace in the storm of fear, and how to process this emotion with Jesus? But also, what are practical steps as well? How can we explore and also experience transformative power of Jesus's love in conquering our fear? And it's not just always by us alone that we can conquer fear. We really need the work of the Holy Spirit, because it's only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can experience true freedom in Jesus and from fear. So let's get right into it.
Speaker 1:There's this verse that I want to share with you guys. That has been life changing for me in the midst of me walking through fear in my life, and fear was something that was so, so paralyzing for me in my earlier 20s. Isaiah 43, it said but now, thus says the Lord, he who created you, o Jacob, he who formed you, o Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you, for I am the Lord, your God, the Holy, one of Israel, your Savior. That's Isaiah 43, one through three.
Speaker 1:And I remember when I was working through a lot of my depression and anxiety, the first thing that really consumed me was fear, fear so much that it was crippling. I was not able to function in a healthy way and thankfully, because of the Lord, he put me in a community, in a church that, even though I wasn't feeling it, I had really amazing friends who rallied around me, who met me where I was. I remember I was even in positions, leading in different ministry positions, and I remember going on stage and praying and seeking Jesus and hope and even praying and blessing that over others. And then, as I got off stage, I remember just crumbling and weeping in tears over just how inadequate I felt. Inadequate. I felt thinking to myself, well, how can I pray such prayers? But in my life, struggling so much and I think a part of that, I was believing the lies of the enemy, saying, see, look, you're such a hypocrite You're praying those kinds of prayers and look at you, you're struggling with depression, you're struggling with fear and anxiety. You're not qualified to be doing that. And that's such a lie of the enemy because he does not want you to fully step in to all that God has for you my pastor says this so well is that the enemy does not want you to have God's best. And even sometimes we make choices to not choose God's best. We'll probably choose God's like good right, like oh God, this is comfortable, I'll settle here, but the Lord really wants us to have his best. And so what does that look like in navigating through fear? Fear is such a strong emotion, whether you've experienced fear from trauma, ptsd, or even if it's stopping you from what you know and believe God has called you to do.
Speaker 1:And I love that movie Inside Out. It's the Pixar movie and it talks about the internal emotions of this preteen young girl, riley. And you see and navigate through different emotions that she experiences internally as she's transitioning and moving. Her parents moved to a new location, a new place, and so she experiences all these emotions and one of them is fear. So in the movie there's this quote that fear says is what if Riley gets rejected? What if nobody likes her? What if she's all alone? And I love that quote about fear because it's oftentimes or in the dictionary it says an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief the belief that's a key word that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or threat, or be afraid of someone or something. To be threatening, to be painful, to be dangerous, to be scared of Different synonyms that we see is to have the possibility or the prospect of something not working out panic, fright, terror, horror, alarm.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, there's a balance of healthy fear, right. For example, if we are crossing the street and we see a car zooming past and you're just like, ooh, I don't know if he's going to stop for me, right, that's a healthy fear, because your body's like, probably not a good idea to cross, right, that's healthy fear. Your body is protecting itself, right, that's a good thing. Protecting itself, right, that's a good thing. But what happens when our fears are disproportionate to the reality of what is happening or what's occurring from something or someone? Right, then what happens? And I think a lot of the times not all a lot of the times our emotional fear is the fear of what if I'm alone, what if nobody loves me, or what if I get rejected or abandoned by this Right, fear is the primary emotion. But when we take time to really dig what motivates my fear, then it starts to really start the process of healing, because that's half the battle is awareness.
Speaker 1:And so that verse, even talking about fear not and fear is something the lord addresses so much throughout the word is fear not, for I have redeemed you, even that language he's speaking into. I see your fear, but I've already accomplished the work that I want to start in you. I have called you by name, you are mine. And so the fear of abandonment, the fear of rejection, the Lord, already in one verse, addresses I've already claimed you, I've already declared you are mine, you are in my family. If you say that I am your Lord and Savior and you've given your life to me and you've received my life that I've given you, you're already mine. I've already pleaded the blood that I have sacrificed for you on the cross, and you are in my family. So fear not, for I am going to complete and am completing the work that I've started in you. But then he also says, in two and three in Isaiah 43, when you pass through the waters, I'll be with you. Through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you.
Speaker 1:When I read that there's just so many different things going on, I think of water. River, fire are different elements we see in nature. Right, when I think of water, I think of the open sea, where I don't know if you guys ever watched those videos of fishermen or the oil rigs or the underwater oil rig workers, the welders and things like that. I mean, if you are afraid of open sea, do not watch it, okay. But I've seen those and I'm thinking, holy cow, those waters are completely just overtaking people and they're just linked to the rig underwater but they still have to weld and meld these metals together to make sure that the tower stands and make sure there's no errors in their infrastructure. I mean, that's crazy stuff and I imagine that, like, as you go through those types of things, I will be with you.
Speaker 1:It's not if we will go through fear or hardship, it's when. But when we do, they will not consume us. You, the water may be hitting you, right? I know that they say that if you're an open sea and you're trying to conserve energy, if you didn't know, now you know a life surviving tip. They say panic, right, you don't want to exert more energy by trying to paddle really hard. But they're saying relax your body and keep your head above, almost like very seldom floating, right, like very seldom paddling and allowing your body to naturally float, because even though the waves come up, when the waves come, and then you hit that lull where your head is above water again, that's when people say take a breath of air, because that's when you will not exert the most energy. Right, you won't panic when the water overtakes you, because you know that the wave will go through and you will experience that lull of water where you can take a breath again, and even that God will always provide the opportunity and the moments to breathe and to be able to take a breath. And then, lastly, right, he says, when you walk through fire, you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you.
Speaker 1:I think about that story when the three men were presented in front of King Nebuchadnezzar and he was like bow down to me, and they were like nope. But I loved where in that verse it said even if God does not take us out of this fire right, and we see him in heaven I'm paraphrasing we will not bow down, but God does. Jesus meets them in the fire and so even that, even in the fire, the flame will not consume us. And so my question and challenge is not if fear will come, it's when. If fear will come, it's when. What does it look like to one? Take a breath and breathe, know that you can do hard things and that the fear does not have to consume you, does not have to overtake you. But what does it look like to invite Jesus into the fear and still say, because you may still feel the emotion, you may still feel it really riled up, and that's okay, because you're going to be okay and you're going to get through it because the Lord is with you. It's not rejecting or completely ignoring the fear, but it's about when you feel it. What does it look like to invite Jesus into that fear.
Speaker 1:I watched a movie recently. It's with Winston Churchill. It's on Netflix, but it's about Churchill during World War II, when Hitler is just taking over Europe, okay, when Hitler is just taking over Europe, okay, and he is now going through. Winston Churchill, right, he was elected to be prime minister by parliament and he is now invited to like, hey, what are we gonna do about? You know what's happening in Europe, because Hitler took most of France and this is leading up to Dunkirk, which is where they're, at the edge of France, by the water, and they have no idea what to do because it does not look promising for the rest of Europe. And so, anyway, this movie it's called the Darkest Hour, it was made in 2017. And is literally taking the rest of Western Europe, like France and things like that.
Speaker 1:And everyone in his chair and everyone who's close to him in his cabinet is saying Churchill, just call it quits, like let's just try to see if we can negotiate with this guy and let's just, you know, otherwise we're gonna die, like he's gonna take over, and at least if we negotiate, and at least if we give in, like maybe he'll, let us still like have some rights and you know, let's just try and. And Winston was like Nope, we're not doing that. And they're all looking at him crazy. They're even thinking about we should get rid of this guy. We should get someone who's going to really look after the UK, because no way we can't keep this going.
Speaker 1:And then when Churchill brings up the idea of let's get people off of Dunkirk like let's get our soldiers and French soldiers off of that beach, everyone's like this dude is crazy. No way, are you kidding. Like all our troops are on the outskirt of Dunkirk and you want us to send our ships in to try and save. People were telling him stats of like it's only 10% that we could really save. Can you imagine the fear that these people are facing? Crazy, right. And yet Winston Churchill and his speech he has so many good ones.
Speaker 1:And as I'm studying more of Winston Churchill, I'm just really in awe of his posture and his persistence. And in the midst of so many people saying you're crazy, there's no way we can get out of this, he's like no, we can never stop, we can never give in. We have to do something. We can't allow our fears to overtake what we know is right and what we have to stand up for in the face of what this tyrant is doing to the rest of Europe. Can you imagine the position this man is in? And I'm getting really excited.
Speaker 1:So you can clearly tell I'm nerding out a little bit on history, okay, but he says in one of his quotes is that doubts can be swept away only by deeds. And you're probably thinking well, what does that have to do with fear? Fear, well, when we fear, we often doubt the call, the plans, things that we know the Lord has spoken into us. That creeps into doubt where we start to question did God really and what does that sound like? Genesis, when the serpent came and said did God really say he brought doubt? So what do we do when those doubts creep in? Well, by this quote, winston Churchill says swept away only by deeds.
Speaker 1:I wonder that when our fear and doubts come in, what is an action that we can do that puts ourselves in the posture of saying, jesus, like you said in your word, you have already redeemed me, you have already called me and I am yours. How can I posture myself to say I feel the fear, I can see the doubts trying to creep in, but God, but God, you are with me, I shall not fear. That's my challenge for you today is what does it look like in the midst of fear to say but God, you are with me, thanks for joining freely. She could thanks so much for sticking around and for the support and love. Just you guys are awesome and I pray and I hope that the word of the lord that is living water refreshes you today to be encouraged and to walk out the promise that God is with you in all that you do. See you guys next week.