Stepping Out in Faith: 3 Powerful Ways to Trust God & Live Boldly

Hey, beautiful friends.

Welcome or welcome back to Faithfield Woman.

This is your host, Kristin.

Today we're going to talk about being bold in our faith, being bold in our action.

We're going to talk about asking God to give us boldness in how we live our lives.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Woman, a podcast designed for Christian women eager to deepen their faith and shine God's light in every aspect of their lives.

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Hi, I'm your host Kristen.

I'm an encourager, a faith led entrepreneur, a mom and a wife.

Let's be encouraged in our everyday lives.

As we let our faith guide us, fuel us and fill us with God's.

Incredible peace, wisdom and joy in our lives.

Today, I want to talk about being bold in our faith.

There have been times where while I was being faithful in some areas of my life, I have found that when I reflect on different seasons, it's possible that I was actually not showing up very boldly at all.

Even while I've done the podcast, there are times where I stand stayed comfortable in my podcast studio, my office, instead of stepping out and showing up in rooms.

And so one thing that's been on my heart is that God is calling me to step into more rooms.

He's calling me to step into more opportunities.

But he's not just going to serve those up to us on a silver platter.

He is expecting us to act boldly, to step out in faith.

And he's expecting us to get uncomfortable.

And so today I want to talk about what it looks like to live boldly for God.

I want to start off today's episode with Acts 4:29.

It says, and now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

Now, throughout this episode I'm going to share several other scriptures about boldness.

But there are a ton throughout Bible but one of the first five daily devotionals, let's see, it was from March 5th, talked about boldness.

And I want to share with you what today's author said.

And the author was Victoria Rioliani.

And basically she goes on to tell us what boldness means in Greek or at least one translation of it.

And she says that the word that's used is, is Parisia which in Greek can be translated to fearless confidence and cheerful courage.

And I think that's a great way to think about being bold in our faith, to have fearless confidence in what the Lord wants us to do, that he wants to speak into other people's lives.

He wants us to point people to him, to his word, to that way of living like Christ and having cheerful courage, knowing that we're showing up with the Holy Spirit, to move through our day, to move through opportunities, to be bold in our action, in our words.

And I think that's so promising.

But I love how she talked about that.

And then another thing that she says I want to share is she says, he still calls each of us to move courageously in community.

The Holy Spirit may be encouraging you to pray boldly for someone, to offer hospitality or to lead a Bible study, whatever the calling is.

May we pray for the fearless confidence to follow the Lord in word and indeed.

But this sums it up so much.

I don't know what you're being called to today to be bold with in your life, but each of us is being called to be bolder and to get a little uncomfortable in our faith.

And by uncomfortable, I just mean stepping out of our comfort zone.

And so I'll say again, some of the things she says.

Is it that God is calling us to show hospitality to someone or to start up a group, a fellowship group?

Is he calling us to start a Bible study?

Is he calling us to pray boldly for other people?

Is he calling us into a room or a new profession?

Is he calling us into new volunteer work?

Is he calling us to do something we've never done before or to have a conversation with a stranger because it's on our heart.

So it could be anything.

But what it really means is that we get used to doing something that maybe doesn't come naturally to us, but when we have God's spirit within us, we can move differently in the world.

And okay, so what else I wanted to share about being bold is I recently just.

Well, actually last week I just went to dc.

Mark Batterson, who I share many of his words from his many books over the years.

He's a pastor in D.C.

national Community Church.

I think he's up to about 25 books published at this point.

But I just love how he brings together concepts, biblical concepts, and then every day, things, stories about people, biblical stories.

And he just makes it really connect the dots for me.

So anyways, I went to this one day writers workshop last Thursday.

And you know, one of the reasons I went is I feel like what I said in the intro that I have gotten too comfortable with, you know, doing the podcast, you know, which is either audio or it could be audio, video, doing interviews, but I haven't been booking, booking myself that often recently on more podcasts, on more shows.

I haven't been being bold in my asks.

I haven't been getting in more room, rooms with, to speak, to be part of communities.

And so one of the things on my heart this year is that God's telling me, show up in the rooms, step in and fight for more opportunities.

And he's reminding me, while he can connect us to the right people at the right time, while he can help show opportunities, it doesn't mean that opportunities are going to come immediately to us.

Sometimes we have a desire or dream in our hearts that are there for years before we are either fully developed and ready for the opportunity, or maybe we haven't put the time in the experience.

And for us to step into the thing, that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep being bold in our prayers to have that thing answered.

And also God's waiting for us to be bold, for him to act and move in bigger ways.

And so we have to remember that.

And so let me share another scripture with you about being bold.

And then later in this episode, I will share with you 3 Ways to Live more boldly in our faith that you can use in your own life to try to, you know, get a little more uncomfortable, step out of your comfort zone and step into more of what God has for you and what he's calling you to, whether you've realized this or not yet.

Okay?

Another one about boldness is Ephesians 3:12, which says, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

And so once again, God, you know, he is helping us to have boldness and to have this confidence.

And so we, we want to understand this.

You know, we want to pray on it.

And then 2 Corinthians 3:12 says, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.

And obviously that hope is our hope in Christ.

And I want to share something else.

So many parts of scripture talk about being bold in our, our words and sharing the gospel.

So one of Those is Ephesians 6:19, which says, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.

So that is true.

A lot of it is saying for us to be bold in our faith, bold and sharing God's word bold and bringing people to Christ.

But it's also about being bold in our actions that God is waiting for us to also move.

You know, he's not going to just do everything right.

He's not going to open opportunities every time if we're not willing to.

To move right, one foot in front of the other and in I've shared a little bit of Bob Goff's devotional365 devotional called Catching Whimsy.

See on his February 28th devotional he's talking about if a door closes, look for a window.

And I want to share just a little excerpt of his book with you because I think it talks about or it speaks to us being bold, right?

In getting in the door or getting into the room.

He says stop thinking in terms of open doors and closed doors.

That kind of thinking will just mess with your head.

Vlad is not that cryptic.

He doesn't play hide and seek with our hopes and dreams.

Instead he places beautiful desires in our hearts to love people and to engage the world.

Don't turn all this beauty into a cosmic game of rock, paper, scissors.

And then he goes on later to say, if I were waiting for God to close one door before he opened another door, I'd always be stuck just outside where I wanted to be, never fully entering in.

Walk through the doors in front of you and if one seems closed, find a window that is ajar to climb through.

Open doors are great, but when you encounter a couple of closed doors, remember why you started down that path in the first place and renew your resolve to get there.

So in other words, if God's put that desire, if he's put that dream on your heart, keep moving towards it, keep working towards it, keep looking for a way in, keep applying, keep pressure right towards that dream.

Because so many of our God given dreams and desires are going to take years.

Or in some cases, it may be that we move the ball, we move the metric in our lifetime, but it may be that that dream and desire will happen after our lifetime.

But we will have set the stage for someone else to make that dream or desire come to full fruition.

Because remember, God does not work on our timetable.

We can only see time in our human perspective, our human eyes.

But in God's, you know, in, in, in God's realm, time is not our time.

And so we have to remember that.

So keep moving towards those dreams and desires, keep praying those prayers.

And I'll talk about this in another episode, upcoming episode.

But Mark Batterson also talks about so many of us pray ASAP prayers, right?

We're like, oh, God, can you just make this happen, like right now, like as soon as possible prayers.

And of course, many of us are going to pray for protection.

We're going to pray for prosperity, we're going to pray for these things.

Hopefully we're praying for other people and we're praying for, you know, things going on in the world.

We're going to pray for our leaders, things like this.

But he also says we need to be praying more, a lot prayers, which is as long as it takes prayers.

In other words, lord, just let me be right a vehicle.

Let me be a person that helps us move towards this dream, this purpose, this longer passion I have, or this thing on my heart that might not.

I might not even see in my lifetime.

For instance, there's stories shared about people planting seeds of trees that will not be able to bear fruit because of the type of tree and how big it has to get until it's their children's, children's generation.

But they plant them knowing that I'll be a prayer answered in the future for future generations.

And so, once again, we need to be bold now.

We need to be bold today.

So how can we be more bold in our faith?

So I have three simple ways that we can all be a little bit more bold and encourage each other in this boldness.

Okay, so the first one is write down your dreams and desires that God has put on your heart.

Have you ever written them down?

Maybe it's that you really feel that God has a message he wants you to share.

Maybe, maybe it's from a past occult situation you've walked through.

It could be that you've walked through divorce, you've walked through cancer, Maybe you've walked through childhood trauma.

Maybe you have been a missionary in another country.

Maybe it's that you were a mama and you just got through the days.

But the point is, is maybe you feel called to share what you've learned, to share what you've walked through and what you've learned on the other side.

That could be through book, through a blog, that could be through speaking at your church.

It could just be being a friend or mentor to other women or other couples in your church, in your community, in your neighborhood.

So write them down, even if you've never spoken before.

Because until you acknowledge them and you regularly look back at them, you may not take steps to move towards those dreams and desires.

Next is write down and pray over scripture about being bold with our words and actions.

Ask God to Help you be bolder to help you get out of your comfort zone.

Okay.

And so I will share with you another scripture about boldness.

Once again, that would be the second way.

And I've shared this before, but I love what Pastor Carolyn Hawes of Substance Church has said before.

And she basically says your comfort zone is the greatest enemy to God's miracle zone.

And you know, she basically explains that when God gives instructions, it's always clear.

And he gives us laser like specific kind of things on our heart.

But it's never from a place.

It's from a place of love.

It's from a place of doing things.

He doesn't give us doubts or twist things.

He does not condemn us.

He doesn't make things hazy or deceive us or make us feel bad.

That is from Satan.

So God is going to try to make things clear.

He wants us to be able to discern them.

And once again, but we have to get out of our comfort zone so that we can step into more of what God has for us.

Okay, what is the next way that we can live more boldly in our faith?

Well, add to your prayer journal or a journal in general.

Or you can put a note, have a note on your phone and your notes app.

Keep boldness list.

And so I also have a on my freebies page@kristenfitch.com I have a 30 days.

It's called Boldness Bold 30.

But it's basically what can you do every day?

Want something small to be a little more bold in your life, to take a bold action.

And that could be that you are just stretching yourself.

In other words, you share a little bit more about your faith.

Maybe it's that you, you know, text a new friend to have coffee.

It could be that you apply for an opportunity you've been wanting to apply for.

Maybe you learn something new about one of those dreams or desires on your heart.

And so once again, keep a boldness list.

Like, are you actually being more bold than you were yesterday, last week, last month, last year, last decade?

Because if we're not aware of it, we're not going to grow.

We're not going to stretch ourselves.

We will stay stagnant.

So much like plant, we have to keep nurturing and nourishing ourselves.

That means getting in God's word.

It means having time for quiet, for silence, to hear God.

But it also means to reflect, to be, to self reflect on how we're stepping into life and if it aligns with what we want, you know, in our faith life.

So in other words, maybe you're not regularly reading things that lift you up, that encourage you in your faith and in your life.

Maybe you're not making time for scripture.

Maybe it's that you're playing small or you're, you're feeling all the things like, well, I'm not qualified.

I would never be able to.

They won't pick me, right?

So if these thoughts are spinning in your head, we want to start shifting those to, God is calling me.

I don't have to be qualified.

But if it's on my heart, if there's even that little inkling, then we need to try, right?

And not give up.

Keep trying, keep knocking, keep opening, keep finding a way through, a way in and away or a way around.

And so that is how God wants us to live.

He wants us to live boldly.

And in that boldness, as Victoria Rioliani said, we, we can have fearless confidence, we can have cheerful courage.

So when we act more boldly, it gets a little easier and we can be cheerful in it.

We can find more joy when we actually step into more of what God wants for us, which is amazing.

And so today I just wanted to come on and share with you and say we should all be asking, lord, give me boldness, Give me boldness in my day, give me boldness in my faith.

Walk in how I show up in the world, both in my small circle or if you're asking me to show up in a bigger circle in different rooms, in different places.

So, Lord, I just pray for all of us that that is what we'll ask for and that we will show up boldly to share God's word, to share our testimony, to share whatever messages God has put on our heart to share with others that can help him for them, especially help them find what it means to live in Christ and why that is such a gift.

Okay, so until next time, I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week.

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