The top reason that stops most believers from going out and sharing their faith with people is their #fear of failure - "What if I don't give the person what they need?!"

Today's Blog we're going to get into:

• Identifying the fear
• Qualifying the fear
• Overcoming the fear

Identifying The Fear

The first question to ask is "What Am I Really Afraid Of Here?"

The thought of talking to a stranger on the street or someone we know at home/work/school can often bring up feelings of conflict within us that are usually followed by the thoughts that back it up:

• What if they think I'm crazy?
• What if I say the wrong thing?
• What if they don't want to talk about this?

As mentioned earlier in the blog Your Mind And Evangelism it shows how our thoughts are linked to our feelings, and how our feelings motivate our actions.

If we have anxious feelings, we automatically assumed that it's because we're unequipped; it's not the right time; we're not the right person, etc., and we therefore don't step out.

But before we should conclude that, we should take the thought captive and observe it a little first to see if it's a legit thought.

I am going to share with you the most powerful thought tool I have ever come across. It's called The Heart Chart.

Heart Chart

The first column is for your immediate feeling.

Let's say there's someone at work or school and you get "the nudge" to go and talk with them.

All of a sudden anxiety fills up your stomach like a bucket filling with lemon juice and you start getting all squirmy.

Your first question is to define exactly what you're feeling: "what am I feeling right now?"

Write that feeling in the first column: "anxiety"

Next you want to critique the feeling and locate where in your brain it's coming from.

Your next question is "What is the automatic negative thought that is attached to this feeling?"

AKA, "What negative thought is making me feel this way?"

This column, the only thoughts that fit here must be negative, must be personalized, and must be related to your identity.

They must be attached to how you see yourself and I explain why that is in a second.

When it comes down to it fear is usually an attack on your identity in some way.

If you dig down a little deeper into what you're really fearing, chances are that you will find something personal about it. For example:

• I'm gonna fail                 =           I'm not good enough
• It won't work                  =           I'm a loser
• It won't happen             =           #God isn't with me
• I'm going to mess up    =            I'm incompetent

We can't use thoughts that are out of our control like:

• they hate me
• they're better than me
• they don't want me to talk to them
• they'll think I'm an idiot
• etc

Because:

A) We don't really know that for sure

B) We can't control how others see us; only how we see ourselves

C) It might be true... and so what?  

I'll share a common thought I always have, "I'm unwanted."

"I'm unwanted" is a good form because it's personal and based on my identity.

It initially comes as "they'll reject me" but when I dig down deeper into that fear, I find it's because I fear being unwanted - which is why they're rejecting me.

So when coming up with your thought make sure you've gotten to the root of it that is attached to your identity/how you see yourself.

You can't change how others see you, but you can change how you see yourself.

That's an important part of the puzzle here.

Qualifying The Fear

We now come to the most difficult part of the chart. The column where we validate the thought.

We now want to look for as much supporting evidence possible to see if this thought is actually true - so the next question you ask yourself is "What is the supporting evidence to this thought?"

Think of it as if we were taking this automatic negative thought to court and we wanted to see if it was guilty or not guilty. We need as much evidence as possible!

In my case with "I'm unwanted" I had/have to think real hard about it because there really is little to no evidence to support the thought.

All I could really come up with was/is:

1. Some people have rejected me before
2. .... uhhh

When I thought hard about it, everything else that I could come up with was really just saying the same thing but a different way.

I need as much evidence as I can get a hold of, and this is really all I could find.

*You'll also want to make sure that whatever "evidence" you come up with is not simply another negative feeling or negative thought.

Keep your feelings in the feeling column and your thoughts in the thoughts column.

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Again, being in a court of law you have to look at both sides of the accusation. We've gone through supporting evidence to this negative thought being true, now we must look at the opposing evidence.

The question you must ask yourself is "What is the opposing evidence to this negative thought being true?"

My list went like this:

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When I thought deeply about it, sure there might have been some cases where people didn't want to hear what I had to say.

In reality, they weren't rejecting me they were likely disinterested or busy. It wasn't that they right out said "I DON'T ACCEPT YOU!"

Even if they did - so what?! Jesus said if the world ever hates me to remember that it first hated Him.

In fact in the Opposing Evidence Column I had margin to put an overwhelming amount of scripture in there that talks about me like:

- Jesus calls me His friend

- I am created in the image of God

- God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for me

- etc.

As a #believer you always have an overwhelming case in your favor AGAINST the accusations of the devil or lies that we tell ourselves.

But now looking at the column and weighing the evidence, which column has more in it? The opposing evidence column.

It appears that the automatic negative thought then is not true. There is more evidence against it.

If it's not true then it must be a lie - or at least not heavy enough to take seriously.

Being rational people we're not going to believe a lie knowing it's a lie - so using the evidence we must come up with a new and true thought.

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Here's what it looks like on the chart:

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Observing this new thought, how does this make me feel?

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I went from anxious to encouraged in the amount of time it took me to do this chart.

Mind you I can still get a bit nervous but now it's not out of a place of fear but of a place of excitement.

We're going to continue this blog in Pt.2 on how to overcome your fear.

So Where Are You?

What are some of the common thoughts that might have been holding you back from reaching out? Did you re-program them with the heart chart? What was the outcome? Comment below!