@Rikki Chelette here is a song to go with your story Rikki!

@Jessa Lemke hey Jessa! I made a song to go with some of your thoughts, I hope it’s encouraging :)

@June Wiegert hey! Here is your song :)

@June Wiegert I feel that. I've had a tricky time over the last year. There is both a fear of letting go but there is also a very real space in which i need to take hold. I've been struggling with the balance (not that balance is necessarily the answer) of knowing that God put desires in me on purpose to be a driving force for his kingdom and new life all around me. I grew up with so much self denial talk that I struggle now with understanding what's useful and what's not but I definitely know that I've come to a place where i see just how much God uses my desires to help guide me, and I'm very thankful for that. Are there desires that He is inviting you to let go of?

@Robert Flores are there any ideas he is currently inviting you to run with?

@Jessa Lemke hmmm not particularly. thats actually part of the frustrating part. im not sure waht the drive is rooted in or primarily motivated by.

@Rikki Chelette trusting your experience with the Lord (and just in general) I’ve found to be really difficult. i didn’t realize until this last big step of faith to move out here that I want the external validation. I am certainly a many with many opinions and a considerable confidence in my thoughts. But when we made this move there was next to no one that understood. The best case was what often felt like a fearful “i don’t get it and I’m not sure it is but if you think it is go for it!” To the worst case “this is just you making stuff up to fulfill your desires” with a bit of venom mixed into the words. I’ve been learning to just keep stepping. But it’s scary. I’ve never been this far out in the ledge by myself before. Even writing that doesn’t feel accurate because in many senses I am not alone. But in faith it’s definitely felt alone, like God is the only one who knows and believes he is inviting me into this and he is the only one who can make it happen, and if I’m wrong they’ll all say I told you so… Haha in some ways I feel like this is the fear and trembling part of working out our faith and we only get to fear and trembling when we actually wrestle with the blurred lines of faith. How much do I believe that the God of the universe is actually inside me, distinct but not all at the same time. How much do I believe and act as thought my thoughts are his thoughts and his thoughts are my thoughts? It’s a scary thought because it flies in the face of the dogmatic fences that we have put up to protect the holy place and yet Jesus left that someone better might come, Spirit is here and better not in an ultimate value sense but in a magnitude of connection difference. If Jesus were still here there be an eternal long line to see him, instead he said anyone who wants to come find me is welcome everyday. It’s painful in some ways because it would be much easier to say yes I would give anything right now for Jesus to be sitting here on the couch with me to talk, when in reality he is actually closer than that. The key though… is faith. The belief that something I can’t see is real, even realer than real. And to act on it. Blessed is he who has not seen and yet believes..

@Alecia Meissner what would it look like if did have faith in the Lord in this area? Put another way, what is it that you are doing or not doing that shows you don’t have faith in this area? If there something he’s calling you to that you haven’t acted on? Is there some feeling/result that would be in your life if you had faith in this area?

@Jennifer Flores Flores I completely resonate with not starting because of the fear of failure. i can map out a long ways in front of me, many possibilities and costs. I tend to treat God like a commander. I go tot he commander, get my orders and then it’s on me to fulfill. There is certainly truth to that, yet the working out of faith for me is wrestling with the reality that while he is Lord, and director of my life, he also wants me involved. He is going to both make it happen and let me do it. He is both telling me what to do and inviting me to make decisions. i feel this a lot right now. In some ways the freedom that God gives feels like too much. I’m definitely in a season of figuring out what it looks like to lean into the identity He’s given me, it’s always empowered by him but it is a unique identity that was given to me in order to make decisions in a vast sandbox. It’s uncomfortable. But exciting when i haven’t given in too much to the fear.