I struggle every day with making the right choices and being able to give my life completely over to Jesus. I have to remind myself that I’m not in charge. In one of your books you say that fear will melt away when you adopt a heavenly perspective. Mine doesn’t seem to be melting, and I constantly have to work on it.
Answer: You asked about struggling with making the right choices. Well, you’re not alone! That’s something we all deal with. Nobody knows the future, and sometimes our choices aren’t cut and dry. Life can be frustrating and confusing at times.
You have hit the nail on the head when you say that the main problem most of us face is giving our life completely over to Jesus. How true! The reason is that we’re afraid of what might happen. We think that we know best, so we tend to cling to our lives and often leave Jesus out of the picture. The bottom line is that we don’t have enough faith to let Jesus take control.
As we said in the book, the opposite of fear is faith. We become fearful when we fail to trust Jesus by faith. You know, there are two kinds of faith. There’s faith God gives us to trust Him for salvation. This is what Ephesians 2:8-9 talks about. This is called “primary” faith. It’s a once-for-all trusting that God has forgiven our sins through Jesus, and that by accepting Jesus as our Savior, we will be in heaven forever with him.
There’s also a kind of faith that is ongoing. This is the kind of faith that Ephesians 2:10 talks about. This is the kind of faith that trusts God every day, knowing that He has prepared us to do good things for Him and for others.
When we fear, it means we are relying on ourselves rather than trusting God with this second kind of faith. At the same time, fear can be a good thing. Fear can be like an alarm alerting us to a great need that lies ahead of us. When this happens, we need to ask God for the courage to take the next step.
All of us are on the verge of taking the “next step.” But we can’t take that step alone. We need God’s courage. The good news is that God promises to give us that courage. Psalm 27:14 says: “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take courage, and wait for the Lord.” Jesus said in John 16:33: “In this world you will have trouble. But take courage! I have overcome the world.”
God will give you courage if you ask Him in faith. And keep at it. Don’t give up. God will answer.
May He bless you as you ask Him for courage.
