Something I have been pondering of late is idea of being bold in what we believe. I had a moment a few weeks ago where I felt like I completely let someone walk over my opinion, and it bugged me. I had the opportunity to explain why I disagreed, how I viewed the situation differently…and instead I fled the scene within seconds.
Why did I do this? I guess in the moment my brain short-circuited and all I could think to do was go sit in the car, but as I sat alone in the aforementioned car, the response—what I should have said—popped into my head. But by then, it was too late. I wasn’t about to barge back inside, derail wherever the conversation had gone by giving my two cents, and then leave again. I could let it go.
Right?
You would think so. But no, it’s something my brain has refused to let go of for literal weeks.
This experience helped me realize that while the concept of being bold in our beliefs, in our faith, seems easy, living it out in practice is not.
Walking a life of faith is hard. Especially when we get stuck trying to do everything ourselves. By our own strength, speaking the message of Christ boldly is not something that’s going to come naturally to most of us.
I think often the moments where we share with the most boldness, the moments where we are able to trust that God is using our words for His glory, are the moments when we are full of Him. When we have spent time with Him, in His word, it overflows from us, like it says in the gospel of Luke: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45) What is inside us, whether we think it’s buried deep or it’s at the surface, bubbles out.
If we are full of Him, that’s what’s going to come out. Our response to any situation, good or bad, is like using a magnifying glass on our own hearts. It shows a lot more than we think it does.
