Devotional: Fearful Servant vs. Fearful Servant

This particular devotional is about fear in doing the work that God has for you, and overcoming that fear. When I was at Young Women's Bible Study with the rest of the ladies, we had decided that we should have it every Monday rather then every other Monday. Then the girls decided that we should each trade off on doing devotionals on the days we weren't doing book study. My first reaction was pure panic because not only do I have a fear of speaking on front of people, but I was afraid that they would laugh at me, or that I would make a mess of it and not truly get the message across. So that same night, I went home and prayed that God would help me. I very clearly told him that by myself, I couldn't do this and that he needed to do this for me. A few hours later while I was fixing some food for my dad, I hear this voice say to me, "Danika, who is someone you admire most in the bible?" My first thought was Esther. Then it said again, "Why do you like Esther so much?" I thought it was because she was a brave woman with a wonderful heart for God. Then it was like an instant download. All these scriptures started coming to me.... The first scripture is Esther 4:9-16: Hathach went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, "All the king's officials and the people the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold scepter to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king." When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: "Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish...." So imagine being Esther in this situation. God has called her to help save her people, but there is the possibility that she might die in the process. Facing possible death can be a scary thing. In the movie One Night With The King, Esther was getting ready to go before the king, and when the king's servant tried to discourage her, she gave a wonderful example of someone she looked up to, who had the right idea of what to do in her situation. This person was David, which brings us to our next scripture, 1 Samuel 17:29-37: "Now what have I done?" said David. "Can't I even speak?" He then turned away to some else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him. David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him." Saul replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth." But David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it struck it and rescued it from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." Saul said to David, "Go, and the Lord be with you." So here is David, a boy with no training, no armor, and no weapons, and he has more faith and courage than all of the soldier's in the army of Israel. One of the many fears of people is that they are not good enough to share the word of God and teach others because they aren't pastors or elders of the church, or they have had a bad past. If you look at Davis and Esther, both of them started out small. Esther as just another Jewish girl, and David as just a shepherd boy, but both of them were used by God to achieve great things. In 2 Timothy 1:7 it says: "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." Now if God gave us the spirit of power, love and self-discipline, he would want us to use that. So often we live in fear of doing the Lord's work whether it be from self-doubt or the doubts and thoughts of the world, that we don't do it. But God challenges us to step outside of what the world has to say. It says in Romans 12:2, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-his good, pleasing, and perfect will." If we give in to our fears, aren't we conforming to the ways of the world? If we truly give in to our fears, we become a "fearful servant". This type of servant is one who literally lives in fear of the the world and becomes a slave to it, which turns to anger and resentment. However in Proverbs 9:10 it says: "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom..." So if we fear the Lord (not as in be scared of him, but have a reverent fear), he will give us the wisdom we need to complete the tasks he has given us. In this case you become a "fearful servant". This type of servant is one who loves and fears the Lord and has a love of serving others and pleasing the Lord. Throughout the bible, there are words of comfort from Jesus, but I think this sums it up perfectly: Proverbs 3:5-6 says: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."