Episode 39: How to Get Through Difficult Times | Fear of Man vs Trust in God

This project has cost me lots of sleep and caused lots of stress - so I decided to take a journey with God, and He helped me realize a fear of mine. 

I was watching a Christian video with Bible verses, and instead of just taking their word for it, I took hours to write out the scriptures and study them myself. 

I prayed and God helped me realize that I struggle with fear of man. 

Check out this episode to hear how to battle fear of man and ways to dive deeper with God in scripture and prayer to help you get through difficult times.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hey friends, welcome to the Only God Podcast, where we share stories only God can write. I'm your host, Stephanie L. Jones. In each episode, we'll dive into powerful testimonies, have great conversations, and encouragement that remind us when the impossible happens, it's only God. Let's get started. Hey friends, it's Stephanie here with another episode of Only God Podcast, sharing stories only God Could Write. And today I want to walk you through how Only God can work in your life when you are going through difficult times. Now, this isn't to say that we don't rely upon our friends, our family. We go seek wise counsel from our pastors or counselors. But what I have found over the years is the best counsel and guidance that I get comes from God and in his word. And so I want to walk you through this is a little bit, I feel like a different episode. Is I've really just been going through a hard time on a project that I'm working on. And honestly, I had come to my wits in. And throughout this uh difficult times in this project, I have been in prayer every day, multiple times a day. I have been in the word of God. And so I want to say that because if you're like, well, Stephanie, maybe you should have been doing this all along. Um, I have been. But sometimes I feel like God calls us to go deeper and to grow our relationship with him and to really understand what it means to follow him and trust him and learn from his word. Um, his word is alive and it's applicable to our life today. And so I had, as I was dealing in this, like just kind of overwhelm and really struggling to sleep, I stumbled upon a video and I watched it. It was faith-based. It's a Christian that I follow, I trust. And so I watched the video. And in the video, there were um, I think, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten verses that the person in the video gave. And this is where I want to say is like there are so many talking heads out there. I am one of them right now. Like, you are listening to me that we go to to learn, learn about God, learn about our faith, learn about the Bible, everything. Like, there are a ton of teachers in the Christian space, but also is we have to have discernment. Like, I like a little speck of dust is how much I know, and you're listening to me, and you may be trusting what I say. Um, and I pray before I got on this podcast today, I pray that the Holy Spirit speaks through me and I give the right and correct message. But you have to go do your own work and get into the Bible and verify what people are saying. Does it align to the word of God? Does it align to scripture? Because I am human, I am fallen, I can interpret things differently. We can interpret things based off of our life and not, you know, what was intended in the Bible. And so I just really challenge you to, uh, whether it's me you're listening to or some other person as it relates to scripture, is to go read that scripture yourself and to pray and to do research on it. And here's the thing: you might say, well, 70, I don't have time to do that because that's why I'm listening to you, or that's why I'm listening to so and so, because they're gonna give me what I need or how I learn. And like that's a small step of it, but at the end of the day, we are not God, these are not our words, and so I challenge you that if you're like, I don't have time, then I would really encourage you to make time. It is the best thing you will do in your day is to spend time with God in prayer and in his word, it will bring you so much comfort and peace. And I have been that person where I said, I don't have time to do this. And when I did start making time, first fruits of my day of being in the word of God, being still journaling in prayer, my life had a 180, and my days are so much better. So let me get back to my point. So I listened to this video and it had 10 scriptures, and honestly, I was like such a mess that I just decided I did not care how long it was gonna take me. I was gonna sit down with my Bible with these 10 scriptures. I was gonna be in prayer, and I was just gonna pray that God would walk me through these verses and what I needed to learn and to help me make some decisions that I was really wrestling with. Now, honestly, I knew the decision I needed to make, but I was just scared to make that decision. And that's what I did verse by verse is I would write out the verse. So I really encourage you to do that is write out the verse. Uh, sometimes I will look at different versions. So I always start with my Bible, um, which is the New Living Translation. But a lot of times I'll pull up um on the Bible app different versions. I have a King James version because a lot of times just one change of a word might change and make it a little bit more applicable to like what I'm going through. And so, anyways, I just encourage you to do that. And so that's what I did is I would write the verse out, I would pray, I would meditate on it. A lot of times I already had notes in my Bible, and I was just amazed. I encourage you to take notes because, and even if you're like, I don't want to write in your Bible, my Bible has a journal section, so it there's like you can journal in it, but I also will put uh like sticky notes in there. So you can do that a couple of ways, and I really encourage you to do it because it always seems like whenever I go back to that verse, maybe something I wrote five years ago, six years ago is applicable to today. And so I would read those and I would pray, I would be still, I would listen, I would write whatever came to my mind. Maybe that was God, maybe it was just my own selfishness or my own wanting an answer, but I still just wrote it out and prayed and went on this journey. And I'm not kidding you, I wrote like 12 pages. And at the end of it, out of all this, it was probably about two hours as I went on this journey. And this is a journey that only God can take you on. And as I got to the end of the journey, I just really felt like the biggest hang-up of my whole situation was that I feared man more than I feared God. And I feared man more than I trusted God. And it was just so eye-opening because I think so many times that we are controlled by our fears. We are controlled by somebody else's actions, we are controlled by the fear of somebody else's actions or the fear of how somebody's going to respond or their emotions or whatever. And it's like if we are letting fear drive us, then that is a lack of trust in what God is going to do or what God is calling you to do. And so when I got to the end and to that revelation, I just had such peace. Not that my journey is gonna be easy, but that it was like this reminder of Stephanie, this reminder to you of whatever situation you're in, is you can't do both. You cannot fear man and trust God. You have to choose a path. And it was like it gave me that foundation, that determination of okay, yes, I can get through this because I am trusting God. I'm gonna hand this situation over to Him, even though, even though, and we do this all the time, is we hand the situation over to God, and then we pull it right back. And it is just this constant of like, God, I give this to you. No, I don't. And every time we pull it back, it's like, I don't trust you, God. I'm gonna be in control to figure this out myself. And that usually leads into disaster, frustration, anger, all the emotions. And none of them are good. None of them, if you go back into the Bible, look at the fruits. You know, the Bible says, look at the fruits, and those things are not the fruits of the spirit, which is patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, right? And so it's why we have to also know the Bible, because it's a great lens to look through how am I reacting? Is my reaction what is the fruits to this? Or how is somebody else reacting, or what are they doing? And is what they're doing the fruits of the spirit or not? And so I just walked away with such a piece about that to confirm, God is so cool, and it's only God that can do this, is the next morning I wake up and my devotional was this verse, and it was Proverbs 29-25. Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety. Don't fear man, trust me. But I'm just here to remind you that that's the message, you know, that if you continue to fear people, it's gonna be a dangerous trap. And also, I really felt that is when we get in that trap, that trap keeps us stuck. That trap keeps us from moving forward and doing what God has called us to do. And trusting God will move us forward in doing what God called us to do. And so I wanted to share that with you today is to say if you are struggling in a situation, if you're struggling at work, if you're struggling with a person, a family member, a friend, a business deal, whatever it is, I want to ask you have you taken time to get into the word of God, to read scripture, to be still, to journal, to have a conversation with God, to listen to what God's saying, to pray these scriptures, and then move forward, figure out what you're fearing or whatever the situation is, and then move forward in faith with 100% trust in God. So I hope this episode was helpful for you. It's just another way that only God can help you along the path that you're going. Hey friends, thank you for joining me today on the Only God podcast. I hope today's story encouraged your faith and reminded you that God is still writing our stories each and every day. If you were inspired by this episode, please share, subscribe, and tell a friend. And to stay connected with me and find out about all my books and resources and events, go to shineforwardcreative.com. Have a fabulous day.