We are so afraid of getting it wrong.
Afraid we didn’t actually hear God. Afraid we’re pursuing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, or that somewhere underneath it all, we’re just wrong at our core. And sometimes, if we’re being really honest, we’ve been so conditioned to be suspicious of our own confidence that having any inner boldness starts to feel like pride.
So we shrink. We second guess. We call it humility and keep waiting for a clearer sign.
But I want to talk about that for a second, because I think a lot of us have been confusing two very different things.
Fear Is Not Humility
This is the thing I keep coming back to. So much of what we call humility before God is actually just fear wearing a spiritual mask.
Real humility is yielded. It’s submitted. It says, “Search me, Lord. If there’s anything in me that’s not of you, show me.” David prayed that prayer. That was genuine, beautiful, Holy Spirit led humility.
But David also said, “I am blameless before you.”
Both of those things were true at the same time. And that tension is not a contradiction. It is actually the invitation.
God doesn’t want you to live in constant uncertainty about whether He’s with you or whether you’re hearing Him. He’s not setting you up to fail. He’s not watching you try to get it right while quietly waiting for you to mess up. That’s not who He is.
What Jesus Actually Did for You
Jesus made you righteous. That’s not a feeling. That’s a reality.
And what that means for how you walk, build, lead, and make decisions is enormous.
Romans 8:28 says He works all things together for the good of those who love Him. He makes your way clear. He makes your way plain. Proverbs tells us that He guards the path of the blameless. That your feet will not fall.
Read that again. Your feet will not fall.
So when you’re standing at a decision and you feel that familiar wave of “what if I get this wrong,” I want you to remember what’s actually true. You have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, deposited there to lead you into all truth. You’re not out here guessing alone. You’re not trying to decode a silent God from a distance.
He is in you. Leading you. Guiding you. And He said you know the way. Walk in it.
The Boldness He’s After
God wants to increase in us the boldness to believe that we are right before Him. Not perfect in every choice, not immune to needing correction, but right. Covered. Guarded. Led.
That boldness isn’t pride. It’s actually what righteousness produces when you let it.
Think about it this way. Sanctification, the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in your life, doesn’t make you more fearful and uncertain. It makes you more right. More sensitive to His voice. More clear on what’s Him and what’s not. Holiness sets you up to walk with even greater confidence, not less.
So the idea that you have to stay in a posture of “I might be wrong about everything” in order to stay humble? That’s a lie. And it’s one worth naming out loud.
The Tension David Carried (And So Can You)
Here’s the thing about David that I love. He held both realities in the same breath. Search me and see if there’s anything wicked in me. And in the same season, I am blameless before you.
That’s not arrogance. That’s a man who understood who God said he was.
He stayed open to conviction. He stayed submitted. But he never let that submission turn into a belief that God was against him or that his standing before God was uncertain.
We are being called into that same tension. Yielded and bold. Submitted and confident. Open to correction and completely secure in whose we are.
You have never been more right than you are right now, standing in what Jesus did for you. That is not something to shrink from. That is something to walk in.
When Fear Has Been Quietly Running the Show
If you read all of this and part of you is nodding but another part still feels the grip of fear when you try to make big decisions or step into something new, you’re not alone in that.
So much of what I work through with women in coaching is exactly this. The gap between knowing what God says about you and actually living and leading and building from that place. It’s some of the most important inner work there is, and it doesn’t have to take forever to shift.
If you’re ready to stop letting fear run quietly underneath everything you’re building, let’s talk. That’s what I’m here for.
And if you want to keep sitting with conversations like this one, come listen to the podcast. Laughing Over Tomorrow is up and running, and we’re going deep on faith, building, and what it actually looks like to live from the Spirit every week.
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