00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on Episode 517 of the inspired stewardship Podcast I'm Ryan Engelstad from Pop Psych One oh one I encourage You to Find Health and one way to be inspired To do that is by listening to this the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott made her what belongs to the place outside of you and the being outside of you to God and others that are above and beyond you, recognizing that you can control the things you can control, and you can do the things you can do, but you can't do everything.
00:00:41 And what's more, you're not even supposed to welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship. Podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired Stewardship podcast, we'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world in todays spiritually Foundation episode about investing in yourself.
00:01:23 I talk with you about why faith and fear can actually both be good why fear, though it's not a fruit of the spirit,
00:01:32 can still be beneficial. But then how to navigate fear through faith? Ah, fear and faith, you know,
00:01:42 at first glance and oftentimes the people hold these up as as opposites to each other, that that faith is the ultimate cure for all fear.
00:01:53 And there's definitely some truth to that. I mean, it is true that it says that fear is not a fruit of the spirit.
00:02:01 Fear is not something that results from something that is given to you by God. Instead, fear comes out of the world.
00:02:11 Fear comes out of us. Fear comes out of our response to the world. Fear comes out of,
00:02:19 often times a place where we are worried about our lack. We're worried about not being able to do something.
00:02:27 We're looking to ourselves for the strength to be able to achieve what we want to achieve. Fear comes often out of not looking towards God,
00:02:38 and in that respect, if faith is defined as looking towards God than faith and fear are indeed opposites.
00:02:47 But I also think sometimes that when we hold that up, what comes across to people is this idea that if you have fear,
00:02:56 it means your faith isn't strong enough that you're doing something wrong that somehow if you only you know if you only believe harder,
00:03:07 that all your fear would go away. And I found that that's often not helpful for folks because fear first off fear actually serves a purpose.
00:03:17 God has put fear inside of us to serve a purpose. Fear is meant to hold us back from doing things that are physically are socially harmful to us.
00:03:28 Fear is meant to keep us in a place that's safe. The problem is that our ability to discern what truly is something to be afraid of and what we fear really for no good reason is often not very well developed inside of our brains.
00:03:48 We we look at public speaking and we think we're gonna die if we do that, and the reason we think that is because it's connected to this idea of social isolation,
00:03:57 it's it's connected to this idea that if I don't do this well, then people are gonna ostracise me,
00:04:03 and if you can get rid of that belief, then you can get rid of that fear and What I would argue is if fear can be good and faith can be good,
00:04:12 that belief in those things that you cannot see that you cannot prove also serves a function. Faith is their too
00:04:20 allow us to. Have hope. Faith is there to allow us to move forward and be more connected to God.
00:04:27 Faith is there to allow us to recognize that we can't do it all. It's not all on our shoulders.
00:04:34 It's not all upto us that there is a higher power out there, so they both serve a benefit.
00:04:40 They're both good. If I agree that fear is indeed not afraid of the spirit, it's not given to us something given to us by God.
00:04:51 In terms of, God has given us that specific fear. God has given us the ability to feel fear to keep us safe.
00:05:00 But God doesn't sit down and say here, let's instill this fear of public speaking. Then how can we work together?
00:05:07 How could we use faith to navigate through fear? The first thing to recognize is that faith is not something that you have.
00:05:17 It's not something that you get. It's not something that you do instead, faith actually comes to us as a gift from God.
00:05:27 Face comes to us is something that we are blessed with. We have it there, we have access to it.
00:05:35 It's inside of us. It's there to tap into. But sometimes we choose to ignore it. Now I've talked before on the podcast about how I'm a very scientifically minded person.
00:05:47 I'm I'm very interested in science and math and history and these sorts of things, and I often look at the world and very black and white empirical ways.
00:05:58 And at first glance, to talk about faith seems so anti this view of the world as to be crazy.
00:06:05 But the truth is, faith is also not necessarily against anything in the world. Instead, it's that gift that God gives us to tap into the divine and to recognize the powers and the abilities and the things that are outside of us that are not ours to depend on.
00:06:27 They're not ours, too, own. They're not ours to do. It allows us to abdicate and give up certain things.
00:06:34 Why keeping others? It allows us to be driven forward. Why we yet remain content with what we have It allows us to see the world where it's not on us tow,
00:06:46 have more faith so that we do not fear. It's up to us to have that relationship with God that allows faith toe flow through us.
00:06:58 And out of that comes a lack of fear and the presence of hope. See, it's not a blame thing.
00:07:06 It's not. If you have fears, it means your faith isn't strong enough. Instead, it means that you need to turn first toe learning how to tap into that faith.
00:07:16 You need to turn first towards whatever it is that allows you to begin to tune into that higher power in that higher place of being whatever it is that allows you to connect with others in a way that builds your relationships with other people that builds your relationships with God and that builds your relationship with yourself and through that hope through that faith,
00:07:40 through tuning into that recognition of what truly is on you versus what belongs to the place outside of you and the being outside of you to God and others that are above and beyond you to to.
00:07:54 Recognizing that you can control the things you can control and you can do the things you can do, but you can't do everything.
00:08:01 And what's more, you're not even supposed to through that, you begin to use faith to navigate fear,
00:08:10 and you begin to recognize the fear that truly is coming from inside you and given to you as a place to protect you versus the fear that is holding you back from doing the things that God has called you to do.