Hello and welcome to another episode of the God Empowered Podcast. It is a new week. Hopefully our minds are feeling renewed and ready. But hey, even if you're not, if you're tired, you're exhausted, you're like, Can this week just be over already? It's okay. It's okay. Some weeks are better than others. And at the end of the day, you pressed play on this podcast episode. And I am hoping that this gives you encouragement that you need today and throughout the rest of the week too. Today's episode, my friends, we are going to talk all about that fear. That's right. The fear you're currently experiencing, the fear you are going through, the fear that is holding you back from doing what God is calling you to do. The fear that keeps you from being consistent. We're going to talk about it. There's surface level fear, right? Like, it's easy to say, well, I'm just scared. I'm just scared to do it. I'm scared to try it. I'm scared to try again. I'm scared to start. I'm scared to scale it. It's easy to say the statement of you being scared. What's hard Is you getting to the root of why your fear specifically exists when it comes to that thing? That thing that God is calling you to do. That thing that you're supposed to be starting. That thing that has a lot to do with your creative gifts right now. There is something deeper as to why you're fearing that. Yes, you're scared. Fear happens. It's okay. But you can choose to remain in that fear or you could choose to learn how to overcome it. The choice is yours. But, if you are ready, and if you are listening to this episode and wanting to feel encouraged, let me just tell you that a goal of yours this year should be how to overcome your fear that's holding you back right now. Before I dive deeper, I don't want you to feel like it is wrong. For you to fear you are human Experiencing a world that has a lot of tough things in it There's a lot of difficult seasons that we go through as human beings living in the world that we live in today working Trying testing figuring things out Navigating life, it's hard Do not deny your human experience of being scared. At that point, you're just lying to yourself and God can see right through that. Okay? He sees your fear. He knows you're scared. He understands. Fear can come from many places, and it's different based off of The type of person you are and the experiences that you've had in life. So yes, does everyone deal with fear? Absolutely. But you my friend have a unique take on fear that is different from someone else's fear based off of deeply rooted things that were planted in you since childhood from experiences from your overall life story so far. You need to uncover that so that you can deal with it. Face the fear, overcome it, and move forward in doing what God is calling you to do. Now when it comes to overcoming fear, I could make the obvious statement of you just need to grow your faith. Faith can help you overcome fear, faith over fear. 100%. Okay. Yes. Yes. And yes to all of that. But we need to go deeper. Okay. Because how can we allow our faith to overcome our fear, to supersede our fear? If we are not fully self aware of where our fear is deriving from in the first place, we need to get to the root, my friend, get to the root, understand it, become self aware so that you can face that fear, grow in faith and move forward. All right, I'm talking a lot, so let's take a step back and let's dive in. First place that your fear could be deeply rooted in is your childhood trauma. Something that I have learned as an adult is how essential it is. To be mindful of how you act and react around your children, not even just your children, but around kids, youth in general, because they will see that they will see how an adult acts and reacts to things. And they will take that on and think that that is the norm. They think that that is how they should act or react in certain situations to the way you parent. It is so essential. And I can only talk very lightly about this because I am not yet a parent, but I've been learning about it because through therapy and reading and my faith walk. Really just discovering that a lot of the way that you are is from what you've seen in your parents, or the people that raised you, or just how you were raised in general. And it's not necessarily a horrible childhood situation that you have to be in in order to have this childhood trauma that causes fear into your adulthood. It honestly could be the fact that you had a great childhood. But There were things that you saw, things that you witnessed that made you scared to do certain things as an adult, but you don't realize it yet because you haven't dug up that pain from that childhood experience yet. Think about the actions and the reactions that you saw from parents, communities, school, teachers growing up. What did you see? Matter of fact, I would love for you to meditate on this for a minute. I would love for you to close your eyes and put yourself in the shoes of yourself when you were a kid. And I want you to think about a situation, a specific moment where what you witnessed as a kid, the way that that adult said something, the way they acted, the way they reacted, whether it was to you or you watched them react to something in their life, or to the people around them, or at their job, whatever it might be, something that you witnessed. that you are realizing stuck with you this entire time. Think about that and meditate on it. Give yourself patience as you meditate on it, because I truly believe that it takes this level of in depth thinking to realize where your fear is deeply rooted in when it comes to your childhood. I grew up watching a lot of adults in my family react to certain things that had to do with money. And those reactions were either extremely negative and emotional and frustrating or the reactions were toxic positivity. For example, I had family members when I was a kid where I remember witnessing them cry over money problems. On the other end, I've had family members give this false sense of hope of I'm gonna be rich one day. And there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing you can say about it. It's gonna happen for me. But then they would never actually put in the effort or do the work to reach a goal like that. So it was interesting. It was like two different ends of the spectrum. Looking back on it, realizing that My fear around doing what God was calling me to do was being so terrified of being on either end of those spectrums. I was so scared to be in a place of being broke and therefore money running my life and being so emotionally frustrated by it. So that would make me hesitate from doing anything that God was calling me to do because I was financially terrified. On the other end I was scared. To have high hopes of becoming financially successful, but not putting in enough consistent effort to get there because I saw that as a kid and I thought that that was normal. So now I'm scared to also find myself in that space. This is an example of what I'm talking about. You have to understand where your fear is coming from so that you can heal that inner child within you and develop the faith enough to take a step forward. To face your fear and to learn to overcome it in time The second place that I believe our fear is deeply rooted in we've compared way too much We have spent way too many hours over our entire lifespan so far comparing ourselves to other people And that comparison throws our competence out the window, dims our light, and makes us feel as if we are not good enough, we are not ready, or we don't have the skill to do what God is calling us to do. It is okay to feel inspired by someone else's success. That's okay. What's not okay is taking the inspiration that you're feeling from that other person's success and using that as a way to degrade your very own timing, your very own calling, your very own obedience to God. You need to remember that your journey and your path is supposed to be different. You comparing yourself to someone else and allowing that to drive fear in you that you will never reach that status. You will never reach that success. You will never be as good as that person. You will never do things in the timing that they did things. Guess what? My friend, you have a false perception. It's not supposed to. Your success, your status, your timing, it's not supposed to look like that other person's. your brain, or the enemy, okay, is making you believe that that false perception is true. And it's not. You're supposed to be different. your status, it's not supposed to match anyone else's that you're seeing. It's supposed to be different. We need to be careful lusting after someone else's path and their gifts. And instead, appreciate, focus, and lean into their gifts. The path and the creative gifts that God gave us. Comparing is robbing you of your confidence. It is robbing you from finally taking a step forward. It is robbing you from shining your God given light. That you know you are being called to shine in some way, in some format, in some conversation, through some product, through some service, through some launch, through some book. You know that. But you're allowing your light to be dimmed anyway. Stop comparing. You don't have to put expectations on yourself to live up to the kind of success or status or whatever that other person achieved. It's causing you to fear. It's causing you to hold yourself back. It's causing you to remain stagnant. The third place where I feel that fear is deeply rooted in is timing. I think that a lot of times we get scared about timing. We fear if it's the right time, and if it ends up not being the right time, what will happen if we'll go down the wrong path. We also fear timing in the sense of feeling like it's too late. It's too late to start. I'm too old. Everybody else is doing this anyway. It's too late. I have kids. Well, I just got this job. So it's too late for me. No. If God is calling you to something, And you know it, you know it in your spirit, it is not too late. He's just sitting there, waiting for you to move. To stop thinking that it's too late. And to just move. See, your version of it being too late is you trying to fit in the box of your human timing. When God is asking you to walk out in faith and trust in his divine timing. God is bigger than time. Something too late for you is not too late for him. But you don't see that because you're blinded by the thought of it's too late for me. Step outside of your box when it comes to time. and step into the divine timing that God has over your life. doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter if you're super skilled at this thing yet, and you just need to wait for that timing. It doesn't matter if you recently became a mom. It doesn't matter if you recently got a job. doesn't matter where you're at. If you feel like God is calling you to pause and take a break to focus on that season of your life, wherever you're at, then by all means, absolutely obey that. Listen to that. But if you know in your heart that you are just making an excuse, it's time to overcome that. Stop letting your fear continue to be deeply rooted in timing. Last thing that I'll say in regards to where your fear could be coming from is money. Oh, I saved the best for last. I know I did because I know you're already thinking it. Money drives us. God knows this. It is why he talks about it in the book of Matthew, chapter six, verse 24. Oh, you don't know what I'm referring to? Guess what? I got it pulled up because we're going to go over it right now together. In Matthew, chapter six, verse 24. It says, No one can serve two masters, for you will hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. Think about that. Why was Jesus specifically talking about the two masters being God and money? Because he knows that that is the number one idol in this world, the number one idol on earth. He knows that people will easily chase after money versus chasing after God and trusting him with their finances. There's a huge difference between the two. You could want to be financially successful. God can make that happen for you between your effort and the faith that you put in, and the outcome that God will produce from that. But it's your heart's posture. Are you chasing money? Or are you chasing God and trusting him to put his hand over your finances as you put in work and as you put in faith in order to become financially successful? Which one is it? Because depending on which one it is, that is a clear indicator of which one you're serving. And because money drives us in this world, because it can so easily become an idol, we also can so easily be feared by it. Now, I get it. It makes sense. And I've been there before, too. I still find myself there many times, many moments, even currently. Why? Because money can give a lot. And it can take a lot. If you have a lot of money, you can get a lot. If you don't have a lot of money, or if your money starts to run out, it takes a lot. Because now your survival, things like your home, you paying rent, food, paying off debts. Now all of these things are completely uncertain. So, I get it. It's easy for money to drive you. Especially when you have a family to take care of. Especially when you have debts to clear. Especially when you just have financial goals in general. It's easy for money to drive you. But because it's driving you so hard, it also is causing you to be so scared by it. Meaning, you won't move. Where God is calling you to move because you're afraid of money. You're afraid of losing money. You are afraid of not having enough of it. You're afraid of anything that has to do with finances or money being part of the process of you just taking a step forward. Here's the thing. If you are questioning, if God is calling you to take action towards something right now, then you need to pause and pray about that. Because you could find yourself in a situation where you are starting that business, writing that book, launching that project. You start to do it, but you rushed it. You're rushing ahead of God's timing, and because you did, now your finances are in jeopardy because you went outside of God's timing. So, if you're questioning it and if you don't know, pray about it. Keep seeking clarity, keep seeking wisdom from people around you in regards to it. And if you need extra encouragement on that, I have plenty of podcast episodes that really talk about hearing God's voice, knowing when it's time to take a move forward, things like that. However, if you know, You know in your spirit that God is calling you to this and he is waiting on you to move. He's just sitting there waiting. The time is now and you just gotta go. You know this and you're the one that's hesitating. You have a trust issue with God because you're afraid to move out of fear that has to do with money. You're afraid to take action because you're scared of money. If God is calling you to it right now, if you give him your yes, if you obey, if you trust, if you put in hard work and effort. If you plan well in order to move and allow God into those plans with you, even if it means changing it up a little bit, then my friend, you will be okay. You will financially be okay. You have no idea how much God will care for you, how much he will take care of you if you give him your yes when he is asking you to move right now. You never know the doors that he will open to ensure that you're financially okay. You never know the person that all of a sudden will come along and help financially to make sure that you're okay. All the little and the big blessings that God can and will do for you all because you gave him your yes Now this does not mean that you say yes to your calling you take a step forward you no longer fear money You're consistent for a week, and then you fall off You can't do that and then expect God to take care of you financially when you're not doing your part in consistency In effort, in growing your faith and trust in God, you got to do that, my friend. That is your part. God's part is the outcome. The results. You have to let go of your fear around money. And this is something that I think is the hardest one. I have had to learn that over my times of taking leaps of faith, where I left jobs to start my business, I pivoted careers, where I stopped one project to start a whole different one because I knew God was calling me to that one instead. So many leaps of faith where money was on the line and my rent, my debts, all of that was in jeopardy. But I was always okay. I was always okay. Now I'm over here trying not to cry. Because that's how powerful God is. I was always okay. Because I just gave him my yes and I learned to trust every step of the way. I learned to put in effort every step of the way. I was financially always okay. Doors opened that I wasn't even expecting. Things came through that I wasn't even expecting. He is that good of a God. If you would just stop allowing money to drive fear in you and instead allow the God that lives in you to drive faith in you. It's a journey. This isn't an overnight thing. But in order to get there, you have to take action. You have to work on your fear of money day by day. Let God be your master. Let God be your treasure, not money. And when you do, I truly believe that he will financially take care of you more than you could have ever imagined. So, this episode can definitely give you a lot to think about. When I was preparing to make this episode, it gave me a lot to think about, too, and reflect on. And that's what I want you to do. I want you to take time to reflect on what this episode talked about. Journal. Pray. And meditate on it. This is the painful part about growth. We gotta do the hard work to grow, to overcome, so that we can finally move those feet. Do what God is calling you to do. I hope this episode blessed you today. I hope that it gave you something powerful to think about. Share it with a friend if you feel that they can also be encouraged by this. Spread the love because there is a way out when it comes to dealing with the fear that you face. Thanks so much for watching my friend, I would love if you could do me a favor and leave us a review of this podcast on Apple Music, Spotify, Google, wherever you listen to this episode, please leave us a review. It would mean so much to me. Also, if you watch this on YouTube and you're watching this on YouTube right now, head to the link down below and leave a review on Apple Music or Spotify, anything like that. I would love, love, love to hear from you. Thanks for watching, my friend. I'm rooting for you, and I will see you next week for another episode of the God Empowered Podcast.