I am by nature a very shy person. Growing up, I refrained from doing things that drew attention to myself, especially things like public speaking. Over time, as I sought to avoid drawing attention to myself, my mind arrived at the conclusion that public speaking was not one of my strengths; it was just something that I couldn’t do. No one else had really seen my oratorical skills, and so no one really pushed me to try it. Thus, the notion remained for a very long time, and I believed it to be true.
When I was 18, as I prepared my applications to universities for my undergraduate studies, I heard God tell me that I would one day go to a Bible college. I was surprised when I heard this, as I did not see myself being a pastor (I associated Bible colleges only with seminaries at the time). Preaching in front of people was definitely not what I saw myself doing in ten years. I was studying to be a molecular biologist; I always pictured myself locked up in a lab running my experiments, having very limited interactions with other people.
God had a very different plan for me. He was about to do many things in and through me that I would never have expected, and He was teaching me to be open to learning from Him and following His leading.
Throughout my times at university, I kept myself busy with activities that ensured that my interactions with others would be at a minimum. I loved learning new things, and being a shy person had made me a good listener. I was happy to listen and observe. In the times when I did meet with others in the university or at church, I took the opportunity to listen and learn. However, when I was asked to share something, I avoided doing so unless there was absolutely no way out.
Eventually, I began to believe that I had nothing of value to share. The seed of shyness and wanting to avoid attention grew into me believing a lie; Everything I had learnt was from others, so others knew what they were talking about and didn’t need me to contribute. And besides, a little voice in my head would say, you’re a shy person. You can’t speak in public. You can’t even articulate what you want to say very well. No one wants to hear what you have to say. And I firmly believed that for about twenty years. I thank God that He convinced me otherwise!
After I graduated from my Masters degree programme, I again heard God telling me about going to a Bible school, and He pointed me to a discipleship training course in Amsterdam. While I was there, I was transformed by God’s wondrous love in new ways. By seeking the Lord and pursuing Him more closely, I learned and developed a lot, both in my faith and in my identity. God opened my eyes to more of the beauty of His character and nature, and as a result my relationship with Him deepened. I began to realise that I had allowed myself to be chained by lies and silenced for too long. I surrendered myself to the hands of the almighty God, and He liberated me from the shackles of the past. Little by little, as God called me closer to Him, I put down my old chains and replaced them with His loving embrace. I slowly realised that I had a strong desire to share all that I was learning. And I realised that because God was with me, I would never need to pick up those chains again.
But whilst I was hearing God’s voice, I also heard that old familiar voice in my mind; a voice that sought to rob me of the progress that I had made with God.
But public speaking is not your strength. You’re not very artistic either, and you can’t write very well. It’s best you keep it to yourself.
And so the voice kept echoing in my head, until one day God asked me a simple question:
‘WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?’
I immediately thought of every possible thing that could go wrong. My conversation with God went something like this:
“What if I freeze and I’m not able to say anything?”
‘WHAT IF YOU DON’T?’
“What if I say something wrong?”
‘WHAT IF YOU DON’T?’
“What if what I have to say is something everyone already knows?”
‘WHAT IF IT ISN’T?’
“What if someone else can say it better than I can?”
“BUT I WANT YOU TO DO IT.”
“But I can’t!”
‘WHO TOLD YOU THAT?’
“Well, I’m a shy person. I’m an introvert. Public speaking is not my strength. I’m not very artistic either, and I can’t write very well.”
‘WHO TOLD YOU THAT?’
I slowly considered that question and it finally dawned on me. This was a lie I had been telling myself for the last twenty-odd years of my life.
I was speechless.
‘I AM YOUR CREATOR, AND I KNOW YOU BEST. I KNOW YOU CAN DO THIS, AND I AM WITH YOU! JUST DO IT!’
“Ok, I’ll do it.”
And I did. I shared. And I did it again. And again. And again. It was something I could do.
God opened doors for me to share testimonies and preach while I was on outreach. I took some opportunities to preach when I was a part of a christian university ministry in Maastricht. He emboldened me to walk up to people and initiate conversations rather than shy away from them like I used to before. A year later, I learned that I had a passion for painting. God inspired my husband and I to write several bible study devotional series which are published on our blog three times a week.
God had prepared me for what He wanted to do through me over the many years leading up to when He finally gave me the little nudge I needed. He made me a good listener. He taught me. He helped me grow in ways that I could only understand in hindsight. He took me to the places where He wanted me to be. He broke all the lies I had been telling myself and He set me free. He carried me as I dived into what He was calling me to do. And in response, I stepped up.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!
Psalm 27:14 (ESV)
God taught me to be present. He took me to different places and showed me I was needed. I initially brushed it off by thinking that others could do the task better than I could, and so I wasn’t needed. Whilst others have their own skills, in that moment, God had brought me to specific places to show me that I was needed and could serve Him just fine as I am. Regardless of whether others could do it better or not, this was something God wanted me to do. And so, if I could be where God was calling me to be, irrespective of whether I thought I was capable of speaking out or not, I was present and willing to follow His leading.
How did this look practically? First, I found myself saying yes to doing a lot of things I normally would have avoided.
‘Would you like to help organise this event?’ “Sure!”
‘Would you like to go on a mission trip?’ “Yes!”
‘Would someone like to share a testimony?’ “Yes!”
Over time, this made me realise that I was right where God wanted me to be in order for me to agree to doing these things. Others were asked these questions as well, and while most of them were much more experienced than I was, God wanted me to be a part of what He was doing in that moment. And so I learned to be present.
God taught me to be patient. The preparation for what God wanted me to do involved a lot of ups and downs. I had a lot to learn. I had made many mistakes. There were times when I wanted to jump right in without giving the task a second thought.
Often, I was discouraged and sometimes I was even embarrassed. But God used these moments of preparation as stepping stones to help me grow. He taught me to trust in Him and to wait for Him. God knows what He’s doing, and all the experiences He walked me through were leading me to what He was calling me to do.
One such example was last year, when I was gaining the confidence to teach and preach. I began to look for every opportunity I could to do so. But certain circumstances arose that resulted in me not being able to share what God was doing in my life in the ways I was familiar with. While I was initially restless, God reminded me that I was right where He wanted me to be. And so I waited patiently. I was able to use my time of waiting to learn more and to go deeper into studying the Bible. After a few months, God inspired my husband and I to share all that He had been teaching us through a blog, enabling us to develop bible study resources for others. God used my time of preparation to open up a new avenue that allowed me to share in a different way to what I was used to.
And finally, God taught me to be persistent. My attempts to do what God was telling me to do sometimes didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped. Often, I was tempted to throw in the towel and metaphorically hide under a rock. But God reminded me to be strong. Not act strong, but be strong. That meant recognising my weakness and finding my strength in God. Let your heart take courage, the Psalmist writes. The best and only place we can truly find courage is when we seek courage from God. In God’s strength, we pick ourselves up and try again, and again, and again. When opportunity knocks, I will open each door in God’s strength. Even if there are obstacles in my way, I know God is with me.
This was something God taught me especially when it came to sharing the Gospel with others. While I had been able to have really good conversations with people and was able to get to know them better, more often than not, the gospel message that I was sharing fell on deaf ears. I often wondered whether I was doing something wrong. Be strong, God would say, and let your heart take courage. What did that mean? I knew I wasn’t as shy as I was before; I could muster up enough confidence to talk to people even when I felt like I had failed. And then I realised it had to do more with what I was saying. This was my weakness – I was relying on my own understanding and ideas of the people I was talking to. But God knew them much better than I did; God knew what they needed to hear. And so me being strong and taking courage didn’t mean that I acted like I knew what I was doing, but rather it meant that I had to let go of my assumptions and rely on God’s knowledge and wisdom to know what to say. And so God helped me be persistent, enabling me to practice listening to His voice more and more.
When I allowed God to work in and through me, He took me to places I never thought I would visit, and presented me with opportunities to speak and write publicly that I never would have dreamed of. He took me from a place of believing that I couldn’t do it, because I was limited by the lies of the past, to a place where anything is possible, because God is with me. In God and with God, there are truly no limits.
And so here I am, not locked up in a lab somewhere, but instead, openly sharing this experience with you. There were so many things I had convinced myself that I couldn’t do. But God knew better. He knows better. He created me after all.
And He created you too! And He knows you. There are no limits to what God can do through you. So just do it! I urge you not to be limited by the lies of the past, or the feelings that you are not good enough to share the gospel. God can and will use you to advance His kingdom if you will be bold enough to follow His leading. When God is in it there is no limit.
God Bless,
Ashna.
