Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul. Psalm 66:16
If you are a bubbling enthusiastic person who can boldly profess your faith, I admire you. But if the idea of sharing your faith with strangers makes the butterflies activate in your gut, I’m there. Give me a laptop and I’ll praise Him all day long and write volumes about what He has done in my life. Place me behind a lectern and I will expound about Bible passages, tell of His grace and mercy and how He lives in me. Put me face to face with you,
and I feel tongue-tied.
Writing and lecturing are more detached—more well, safe. There is a comfortable barrier between us. But
to speak one on one to where I can feel your breath and smell your cologne, makes me want to back pedal, unless we are already friends or sisters in Christ. The old ways of how I was raised, to be way too self-conscious of what others think about me rears its ugly head. The whispers and back-stabbing gossip of my junior high peers because I was a nerd, a do-good Christian and not that good looking still stings in wounds which only my Lord can heal.
What helps me is the middle part of this verse. All you who fear God.
The more I concentrate on that, the more comfortable I get. I need to be more bold to proclaim His goodness
in my life and leave the results up to God and the person who is hearing them. If they don’t yet fear (awe, revere) God as the King of Kings who died for their sins, they may turn from my message. That is not my doing, it is their
choice. It doesn’t mean I did it wrong, or I failed God. That’s self talking again.
But more than that, like Paul says, if I have not love, I am a noisy gong. If I try to dim the light of Christ in me in favor of shining the world’s light on me instead, no one will take my words, or actions seriously. I am no different than anyone else trying to gain 15 minutes of fame or wanting to talk about “me”.
I will tell what He has done for my soul—in my actions, in my daily walk, and if called upon, I pray I can have the gumption, to also relate orally to whomever the Sprit prompts me. To not do otherwise is my
doing. It then becomes my choice and my sinful pride getting in the way.
