"Do What You Fear"

This picture was from Thursday of this week at the Innovate Conference at Granger Community Church. When I'm in a drama, here are my typical emotions and thoughts that come in my head:

• When I have an upcoming drama, it's a feeling of pressure, anxiety, and "I'll feel a lot better when I get this over with..."
• I obsess about practice. I practice facial expressions in the mirror, I'm doing my lines in the car on the way to work, at lunch, home from work, before I go to bed, and any other white space of opportunity to run them...
• The day of the drama, I don't like talking to people much... Whatever I can do to maintain some sort of concentration, I try to do it...
• The moments before the drama backstage, I'm praying to God that I don't bomb my lines and trying to tell myself to have fun and actually enjoy it... all the while my heart rate is escalating, and I'm experiencing shortness of breath as I'm creeping into character...
• While actually delivering the lines, I often have other thoughts in my head that have nothing to do with the drama at all- "Huh, I wonder if the Cowboys have the early or late game today?" That's a scary reality when standing in front of 1000 people...
• I'm afraid of blowing my lines, letting down my team, letting down my church, how I would look, being bad, doing it for the wrong reasons...and on and on...
• Until the final drama is done... I'm usually not having much fun, each service is a small win.

So why do I put myself through the misery? One reason among many is that it forces me to do something I fear. I once read, "Do what you fear and you control fear"- I believe that was Tom Hopkins in "The Art of Selling"...

I've really reflected a lot on my fears and how they limit and/or derail me in pursing the purposes God has put me here to carry out. There is a direct correlation to our leadership capacity and our ability to deal with fear in our lives.

Here are some of mine that I deal with:

• I will over-analyze a decision to avoid a fear of making the wrong decision.
• I will not speak my opinion in a meeting, conference call, or conversation for fear of looking dumb or worrying about what others may think.
• I fear being wrong, sounding wrong, looking wrong, and will do what I can to avoid it.
• I won't introduce myself to strangers for fear of what they may think.

There are so many more... In my past, I've blown my lines and it was awful. But greatness in this life will not come without screwing up, tough struggle, and the perseverance to keep on keeping on... How do you deal with your fears? Are you able to look inward and know what they are? If we can free ourselves from our anchor's of fear, what might God do through us?