This is a pretty famous Scripture - fan into flame the gift of God. If you grew up in the church you know it, and it might even be too familiar. Some passages are like that, you've read them so many times you think there's nothing more to learn from it. But if you ask the Holy Spirit to bring revelation, He will! So let's take a closer look! What does it really mean to fan something into flame?

Fear is one of, if not the most common and pervasive struggle in the western church today. It distracts us, paralyzes us, and anesthetizes us from the abundant work of God. The enemy loves playing with fear because He knows that it is in opposition to faith, and it is faith that pleases God (Hebrews 11:6). Remember, he's only your enemy because he is God's enemy. He also loves fear because it's so versatile. He doesn't care what you're afraid of, as long as you stay stuck in fear.

What you think about yourself is some of the most important thoughts you will ever have. Your identity, your calling, your destiny are lived inside out. Don't wait for circumstances or other people to tell you who you are. You need to crawl into your Daddy's lap - the One who created you and knows you more fully than anyone on earth every will. He gets to define you, to identify you, to call you. All of these things flow out of intimacy with the Father.

With consistency, the need for control only grows until it suddenly is controlling you. The more you focus on producing a specific outcome, the further away you get from the throne of God. The problem with control is, it leaves no room for faith.

Sometimes the letting go is forced upon us by circumstances, and sometimes it takes courage for us to initiate. At some point in life we find ourselves on either side of the coin, and the best we could do would be to trust God's hand in it all, and let Him teach us the art of letting go.

What if we could tell our stories not only when they're complete and neat and tied with a beautiful bow, but when we're in the middle of them? Imagine with me, a church where we model for each other how to survive the middle of the story and not just the end. I wish I'd had people around me who said hey, I have these wounds, and they still hurt, but God is here and He is good. To show me how to give testimony during the process.