And the Lord is now calling me for a second time, affirming me, enabling me, encouraging me, challenging me all the way into fullness faith, hope, and love in the power of His Holy Spirit. Ignorant, weak, sinful person that I am, with easy rationalizations for my sinful behavior, I am being told anew in the unmistakable language of love, “I am with you, I am for you, I am in you. I expect for failure from you than you expect from yourself”.
There is one barrier to love that deserves special mention because it is so crucial to the second call of Jesus Christ - fear. Most of us spend considerable time putting off the things we should be doing or we would like to do or we want to do - but are afraid to do.
We are afraid of failure.
We don’t like it, we shun it, we avoid it because of our inordinate desire to be thought we of by others. So we come up with a thousand brilliant excuses for doing nothing. We put things off, waste energies of life and love that are within us…
…Each of us pays a heavy price for fear of falling flat on our face. It assures the progressive narrowing of our personalities and prevents exploration and experimentation. As we get older we do only the things we do well. There is no growth in Christ Jesus without some difficulty and fumbling.
