“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7

I was reading a blog post from The Unlikely Homeschool, since I am a homeschooling mama, this morning about shyness.  It was quite eye-opening because although I have been labeled an extroverted person I tend to be extremely shy about public speaking.  Don’t get me wrong I love doing it but my nerves get to me every time.  I do not personally feel I am an extroverted person because like introverts, I prefer being alone or one-on-one rather than in large gatherings.  So I am not sure if my shyness is due to truly being nervous about public speaking because of being in front of a large group of people or if it is due to my own selfishness because of wondering what people would think of me.

If truth be told it is probably a little bit of both.  When I am speaking I like to remind myself just Who I am representing and would feel bad if I did not represent God well.  Which is a plus because my ultimate goal when speaking is to glorify Him in an effort to help people glean or build on their relationship with God.  The negative side though is that there have been MANY times when I have opened my mouth to add my two cents to something but I sound, to others, condescending and self-righteous, or so I have been told.  It is not my desire to reflect that behavior but it has happened and because of that there is always this internal fight I have going on in my soul whenever the subject of God, religion, church, etc., comes up.  The positive side of me tells me to say what I am thinking because it may just be that one thing God needs that person to know and He is nudging me to be the person to deliver the message but the negative side of me feels as though if I open my mouth someone might feel like I am being holier-than-thou again, giving them the desire to discontinue further communication with me.

This verse has taught me to be zealous for the Lord, not shying away due to my own insecurities but instead reminds me to have self-discipline to pray before speaking so that I may be able to distinguish between a want (self driven) of speaking and a need (God driven) of speaking.  I do not want to be timid when speaking of or for the Lord but just have to be ever mindful if that is in fact what I am doing or if I am speaking for the sake of speaking.

I want to be God driven and prayer is the only way to succeed at that, unfortunately not everyone is going to see it as such so that is where grace steps in.  If I am speaking for Him and someone displays an attitude of irritation towards me because they see me as being pious then I will need to learn how to freely give grace.  Shyness, though, is no longer an option for me.  Thank you theunlikelyhomeschool, click here to read more on the story I mentioned.

Zealous not Shy!