Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
I waffled back and forth between a couple of different verses, but I ultimately picked the one that was the most personally encouraging, as well as one of the most familiar verses from 2 Timothy.
However, I decided to put it together with the preceding verse, not only for context, but because it puts a slightly different slant on it:
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline - 2 Tim. 1: 6-7
We often see verse 7 quoted by itself as an encouragement that we should be brave, but verse 6 provides the purpose for such bravery: fanning into flame the gift of God that has been deposited in us.
I'm not going into what the 'gift of God' could mean at this point...what I'm going to focus on is 'fan into flame'...i.e., we have personal responsibility to grow and mature and implement what God has given us.
And that takes some pushing past things. I like the NIV translation 'timidity'...other versions use 'fear', which is sort of the same thing; the difference, to me, is one of degree. Timidity is not a huge paralyzing fear. It's a little fear, a hanging-back sort of fear, a let-someone-else-go-first sort of fear.
It is precisely the fear I find myself battling the most.
Lack of confidence, unsure...am I really hearing God here?
If I fan my gifting into flame...feed it, encourage it, through exercising the self-discipline with love always as my motive (not self-promotion! That Greek word is agape!), I will have power to break through that cowardice and put that gift to work for the kingdom.
(side note: I'll be chaperoning a school trip next Friday, so FFF will pick up in two weeks :-D )
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