Self Doubt and The Leap of Faith Part 2
Unfinished tasks seep away energy. They also create tons of self doubts.
Life is busy. It’s hard to focus on one task at a time. There are always several dozens other tasks pending. It’s easy to get stuck in a treadmill of doing task A and worrying about task B; while doing task B, worrying about task C; and, during task C, thinking about task A.
We busy people tend to chase our own tails.
How to take the leap of faith when there are many dozens tasks coming against you?
Prior to the moment of writing this post, I have been doing research on keywords for several hours —part of my work as a blogger is to understand what people type into the search engine search box and from their keywords guess what type of information they are looking for — and at the same time contemplating on the future direction of my websites. I’ve also scanned through many old posts that I have written so far and felt nervous.
I felt nervous because I doubted if what I have written so far are leading toward the right direction. Are they compatible with my sites’ central theme? Will people find them awkward?
I also worried that surfers might not “get” the overall picture I am trying to deliver and get confused. Am I doing too much with just one site and one blog? Am I doing too many topics? Am I being too subtle with the spiritual message I am trying to come across?
I am “already” 27 years old! To this day I have already been experimenting with self-employment for 2 years and 4 months! That means no income.
I have been living on allowance from my parents!
Take Deep Breaths
My mind has been scattered by all the questions and self-doubts that come non-stop. There is no one single answer to each of the question I asked. No one can ever have all the advantages at any single point in life, especially while doing a big project such as building a blog. It’s a matter of perspective: a glass half empty or a glass half full.
For example, I am living with my parents and I am self-employed (Or unemployed if you look at the empty half), so I can focus on doing the most important, blogging for God. There’s a lot of ways to look at my situation.
I will probably talk more about perspective in the future posts. Let’s go back to when I said my mind was scattered.
I have to consciously breath.
When in doubt, don’t fidget. Calm down and focus. You can’t silence the voice of self-doubts by sheer force, but you can relax by doing other things such as taking deep breaths and go for a walk.
Breathing is a great technique. As a Christian, breathing is a very useful aid because many spiritual disciplines require patience and focus.
Let the Lord Speak
Deep down, I know what God want me to do: to build a website that share my daily meditation and experience with Him with the world. But there are just a thousand and one tasks that are fighting for my attention. Can I put aside everything and focus on the priorities?
One time, Jesus was received by the sisters, Martha and Mary, into their house, and thus came the famous bible story:
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:38-42).
Like Martha, we all have many tasks that can distract us, and we can trace the origin of these tasks to sources such as self-imposed standard, conventional definition of success, and worries about how other people might think of us. They are illusions. They tempt us to fight a war that will never end.
If I look for problems to fix, problems will pop up from everywhere. I will never be good enough, financially independent enough, and spiritual enough to blog for God. I will never reach a point where I am perfect. And there’s rarely a perfect timing.
True perfect timing is when God ask you to do something. If God speak to your heart, obey.
Early on, when I was investigating online marketing, I was planning to build a site based on personal finance. Since I had never had a financial focus in my life at all, I had to learn from ground up. I did it because I joined a MLM company in the financial sector, and I was thinking a website would help me recruit people. I read financial books for beginners such as Personal Finance For Canadian For Dummies and Susie Orman’s Young, Fabulous, & Broke. The learning curve was STEEP!
To this day, there’s still a lot of things that I don’t know in the area of personal finance.
I asked myself why I chose that direction instead of blogging for God immediately.
The reason was that I was trying to make myself perfect, so people would agree with me. For years, I had thought of myself as someone who only pursued the spiritual things, but was ignorant of solving real world’s problems. I worried people might not listen to my sermons when I became a pastor because I was ignorant with “real” problems of the world.
When The Lord Speak
The following is a chorus of an old hymn, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Indeed, when I listen to God’s voice, all my self-doubts would fade.
We humans like to complicate things with our minds, but the Lord will simplify things for us if we listen.
In the next installment, I will talk about what to do and what will happen when God speak to us and tell us to do something.
Hey man,
I am here going through all of your blog posts. and i just wanted to let you know that you are impacting me. if no one else is being effected by these blogs, just know that a young 23yr old, black father, in the US is greatly appreciative that the Lord has touched your heart to impact people seeking God, and to impact people who are lost. i have also added you on twitter. I pray that the Lord will bless you spiritually and that the fruit of that spiritual blessing will manifests itself in the natural. God bless you sir.
Wow, I am overwhelmed by your appreciations. I truly feel undeserved.
Speaking of manifestation, or the way I prefer to call it, substantiation, I am really waiting for the truth and spiritual blessing to be substantiated into reality. Your prayer to manifest is most relevant.
Not all my posts are good. Please point out if you find any problem.