Pues Dios no nos ha dado un espíritu de timidez, sino do poder, de amor y de dominio propio. — 2 Timoteo 1:7 NVI
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
— 2 Timothy 1:7 NIV
Last year at the Easter service we attended, Paul McDill declared that, as believers, we don’t need to fear death, and if we don’t fear death, we don’t need to be afraid of anything. That statement hit me unlike anything I’ve heard in years and launched a year of courage. Since Easter, I’ve ended a relationship that needed ending, I jumped off a 25-foot rainforest cliff into a pool of water, and I’ve started really studying Spanish.
I’ve felt called to learn to speak Spanish for over eight years. I’ve ignored this, and I’ve dabbled at it, but no matter what, this call hasn’t gone away. It has just kept nagging at me. This spring semester, I finally bit the bullet and enrolled in Spanish I at Eastfield College. It was so scary, because I still have some perfectionism in me. I hate doing things badly and looking like an idiot, which is sure to happen when learning a new language. It’s also a whole different world than when I was last in school 25 years ago! In those days, everything I needed for my classes — books, paper, tests — was right there in front of me. The internet didn’t even exist for normal people! Now my “book” is up in a cloud somewhere, floating around with my assignments and tests. And, to top it all off, my classmates — instead of being my peers — are about the same age as my younger son.
All of this was daunting, but I’m tired of being afraid of things. Fear, timidity, is not from God and must be ignored. If we wait until we aren’t afraid, we will never fully become who God says we are and what God has called us to be. Paul McDill rightly stated on Sunday that having courage doesn’t mean that we aren’t afraid. It just means that we do it anyway.
P.S. I’m having a blast in my class!