You Can Be Brave
Welcome to the Solidarity podcast,
where we share stories to connect with one another, find comfort in life’s challenges & to celebrate the solidarity that is..
being a woman.
A few weeks ago God put this message on my heart to share and I ended up filming a devotional video about bravery.
I ended up loving it so much that I wanted to make it into an episode that I could share here because my audience is pretty small and not everyone uses every platform so if you’ve heard this before, hang in there, I’m actually adding on today because I have more thoughts and but this is also just a really good reminder even if it’s familiar.
I’m going to start with a question and I’m going to end with the same question because I want to see if your answer is genuine or if you find that it’s circumstantial and then see if it maybe change by the end.
Okay the question:
Are you brave enough to believe that God will show up?
When it comes to bravery I think we often look at it like it’s only something for those who are doing the stereotypical “brave” jobs. First responders, our military, first aid and disaster response teams- ya know, the brave people that run into the fire not knowing if they’ll run out, but they’re willing to do it because they know what the reward will be if they succeed. Life. Freedom. Redemption.
Faith and bravery go hand in hand. In fact I’ll take it a step further and say that there is no faith without bravery. Even taking the smallest step of faith, takes a little bit of bravery. Going out on a limb with the expectation that something amazing is going to happen takes faith.
Now obviously things don’t go the way we imagine they should every time, but I think there is something special about walking in faith and taking a brave leap and the way that God shows up in that.
Because even when it doesn’t go the way we picture, when we step out in faith, we have the expectation that God is going to show up and in that, we have the promise that He is going to do good for those who love Him. The good, it’s subjective. Sometimes we don’t see it as good until years later, but I assure you, He does know what He’s doing.
There is a faith in that even. If you’re walking in a season where you went out on faith and things did not go the way you were expecting to, it can be easy to shake your head at God and wonder why He let you fall. Wonder why He would ask you to be brave if He wasn’t going to do what you thought He was going to do. Maybe you’ve come out on the other side now and you see the why. Or maybe you’re walking in it right now and praying that He’ll show up and put the pieces back together. Either way, there is bravery- faith in the waiting.
There’s a lot of situations that I wish I had been more brave in and then there’s been some where I have been really brave, but out of my own strength- we all know how that goes. I just wish I had been more brave in trusting God and fearing nothing. I think that those moments would’ve been more enjoyable and I’d be able to look back on them more fondly. These are the situations that I have to take with a grain of salt and remind myself of them going forward so that I don’t make the same mistakes.
In the moments that I need to take a step back and believe that God has it all worked out, I have to be brave and let the fear go.
In the moments where He’s telling me to go but I’m not exactly sure what it’s going to look like when I get there, I have to be brave and let the fear of the unknown go.
One of my bravest moments was moving to Nashville by myself when I was 18.
At the time I didn’t feel brave, I actually felt very, very scared. I didn’t view that move as brave, I viewed it as something that would make other people happy and something that would please God enough to let me do what I really wanted to do (which was to move to NYC) and I viewed it as running away from my problems in Michigan. But I didn’t show anyone else that.
I knew that God was calling me south, He was using a childhood dream of mine to pursue music and to live in the south and I guess that’s what gave me enough confidence to do it. I made a “deal” with God, which always goes great, like He’s a genie and I’m negotiating with Him. I made a deal that I would move there for a year, appease everyone who wanted me to make it in music, give myself a chance and then after a year when it inevitably didn’t work because I knew I wouldn’t have it all together enough to “make it” (whatever that means) in a year, that I’d move on to NYC where I really wanted to be.
Jokes on me, three years later, I’m sitting an hour away from Nashville in the home we bought in small town Tennessee with my husband and my 7 month old son.
God knew.
And He used what little bravery I had, because even though I was going, I was terrified, but He used that little shred of hope and bravery that I had to get me to where I needed to be so that I could meet Dustin and work through some serious issues I had and be removed from a really toxic environment that I was living and working in. He used that to set me up for the life I have now, even if it wasn’t the life I thought I wanted. Even though my faith was lacking, He used it all anyways. He used the hard situations I had to endure because I wasn’t walking with Him or truly trusting (it would have been so much more fun if I had) to break me and bring me back to Him.
And sometimes that’s what bravery is. A lot of times actually. It’s surrendering because you just can’t do it on your own and sitting in God’s fierceness. It’s letting Him be brave for you and in that, you’re being brave yourself by letting go of control.
It was funny actually, well not, it was God. Right before I left for Nashville I was on a women’s team at my church and I was given a book as a gift for helping coordinate a huge event we had, the IF conference. I was given 100 Days To Brave by Annie Downs. God has used that book to change my life perspective more than once, I definitely recommend picking up a copy. It was perfect timing because I started reading it right before I moved to Nashville and the book was actually about her own journey with moving to Nashville years prior and how she wrestled with God and the journey to become brave in those events. It gave me such an intense perspective on bravery that I didn’t really even comprehend until years later, just recently.
If you had asked me back then I would say that I didn’t feel brave. I felt left behind by God. I felt really alone and like a total failure. I didn’t even know how I was surviving, looking back it is only by the grace of God that I got by that first year because I was a total mess financially, relationally, mentally and spiritually. I felt like God couldn’t love me anymore for walking away and making all of the mistakes I had made. I felt like my friends had all forgotten about me, lost respect for me or never cared to begin with. I felt trapped by my finances and the living situation I was in. I felt like I let everyone down by my failure to pursue music well or succeed in it. I felt like I let everyone down that had poured into me for years when I realized that although I love music, so dearly, I hate the business. I hate the industry and I didn’t want any part of it. I gave it so many chances, even a year or two later I gave it another chance when I released five or six songs. And I still knew that I was supposed to be done. But admitting that, choosing to move on from something that you wanted so desperately- that others wanted for you and invested into so very much- it’s terrifying. And even now I’m still having to give that back to God. It’s a weird frustration that you have when you realize that a dream is dying and that you’re going to have to bravely move on and wait for whatever is next. I mean no-one ever said you have to do one thing for your entire life, you can do many things through many seasons, but the way society has us set up, if you don’t make it to a certain point to satisfy enough people, it feels like a failure. I grapple with that a lot. I have to remind myself to be brave often.
To fuel that bravery, that faith, I’ve found that you must fill up on the word of God. You must practice Eucharisteo- the honor of giving thanks to God who was and is and is to come- even when it doesn’t feel like it. Because Eucharisteo- giving thanks, it precedes the blessing, always. If you are waiting on the blessing, I encourage you to start there. Journal it out, write a list of blessings, start speaking them out loud- whatever you need to do. Read One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp if you want to understand and practice this concept more in depth.
So what are you facing in your life right now? What brave choice or attitude do you have to choose? Maybe you haven’t taken whatever step God is prodding your heart towards right now. Maybe you’re just starting to feel the nudge or you’ve been feeling it for awhile but you’re just a bit afraid to take whatever that next step is. The unknown is staring you in the face, taunting you- the lack of clarity, it can be terrifying to take that first step. So I want to remind you that you can be brave. You can take that first step towards whatever He is calling you into because although you may feel like you’re completely alone and that He’ll only show up once you’ve started walking, that isn’t true. You may not be able to see Him, you may not even be able to feel Him or hear Him, but He is there. He is walking with you. Psalm 23 says: “For even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life & I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever!” My love He is with you. If you have Jesus, He is with you. He has even gone BEFORE you- He’s prepared that table. He’s prepared that oil. He’s prepared thot path of righteousness for His name sake for you to walk down. That is a beautiful promise.
So take courage dear heart.
There is a reason that God says to be strong and courageous over 15 times throughout the Bible. He means it.
So you can be brave because He is there.
You can be brave because He is with you in the little moments when you’re faced with telling a hard truth.
He is with you when you’re making the choice to do what is He calling you to, even when it’s uncomfortable.
He is with you when He’s asking you to tithe the money that you’re afraid to part with because then you may not have enough for whatever it is you’re wanting.
He is with you when you’re opening up to someone you love that you’ve been hiding from out of fear, based in the lies that the evil one has conned you into believing.
He is with you.
So I’ll ask you again, are you brave enough to believe that God will show up?
Thank you so much for listening in this week, I hope you’ll take what you heard today and set it on your heart. I pray that you’ll ask God to reveal to you what you’re supposed to take from it and what He wants to reveal to you. I encourage you to keep coming back to find solidarity in our shared experiences. If you’d like to share your own story, I would love to have you on. Just shoot me a message on Instagram - @riley_quin or send me an email- riley@rileyq.com and we’ll talk!
Don’t forget to share this with a woman who you want to encourage today, you can share it on Facebook @solidaritypodcast or Instagram @riley_quin and tag me so we can get the word out on social media and if you’re feeling it, subscribe and leave a review to help get it out to others on the podcast algorithm who need to be shown some solidarity! Thanks again for listening and be sure to check back next Wednesday for a new episode!
As always, I’m so glad you’re here.
You’re wanted, needed and loved.
I see you, I hear you and you my love, by the grace of God, you are enough.