When you are rejected or life gets hard, what is your first reaction? I’ve realized mine tends to be “why me” or “when will it get better.” Recently, I have been challenged to trade my questioning for more faith- to stop and ask God for MORE BOLDNESS. Whether someone has hurt me repeatedly or what I have to say is pushed aside and rejected, I am provoked to press in and ask God to empower me with His Holy Spirit and to actually ask for MORE OF HIM. I don’t want to live a life of passivity, but one of risk. Sometimes it is a risk to continually put your heart out on the line, to talk to a stranger, to step out of your comfort zone in the big and the small.. whatever it may be.
In Acts 4, the body of believers were beginning to experience threats and push back as they began to share Jesus’ truth and love and instead of shrinking back into passivity or complaining, they did something that some of you may find strange. They prayed for boldness. “And now Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’ And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:29-31). Now, in this passage it is specifically a prayer of boldness to continue to share the word of God, but I think that we can apply this prayer and this attitude in every area of our lives. My prayer is that in everything we do, we would live and move being empowered by the Holy Spirit and challenged to speak and walk boldly in whatever God is moving us into.
I am challenged to take more risks, whatever they may be. To love fiercely and without reservation, to go talk to that stranger on the street, to speak out against injustice, to share what Jesus is teaching you, to step out in your gifts and dreams, and to always glorify and proclaim Jesus no matter where you are or what you are doing. I don’t want to live in passivity, I want to swim out beyond the shore and learn to swim in deeper waters. My prayer is that my whole life would be one of intentionality, boldness and love, because that’s how Jesus lived. I don’t want to be someone that picks and chooses when to follow Jesus, but that my entire life would proclaim His majesty and might.
Live a life of risk. Ask God for boldness. Talk to the stranger in the street. Pray for the barista at the coffee shop. Go after the dreams God has given you, even when it’s scary. Love even if it means you might get hurt. May the Holy Spirit empower you and may your life be one that echoes eternity and proclaims the power of Jesus.