Joining the Conversation

I never thought I’d be creating a personal blog.

These days, the world is full of voices. Social media—and media in general—has given everyone a platform to express themselves. We live in a vast sea of opinions, memes, videos, and ideas. Everyone has something to say. Honestly, I’ve often felt like there were already too many voices for me to add mine to the mix. Too many opinions to sort through, just to find out what might be true or even just relevant.

Sometimes it feels like shopping at a discount store, where you’ve got to rummage through piles of clutter to find that one treasure that was worth it all. And most days, I just don’t have the energy for all that rummaging. I figured maybe others didn’t either.

So I thought the last thing the world needs is one more voice. One more person with opinions. Especially when I assumed most of my thoughts were probably already being said somewhere by someone else—and if they said it well, I could just nod in agreement and move on.

But over the past few years, something started stirring inside me. Like I had too many things to say that I wasn’t saying. They began to pile up, not just as thoughts, but as weight—turning into aggravations, affecting my mental health and spiritual peace. It was kind of like a constipation in the soul. I felt bottled up, like I needed to be expressed.

Underneath all of this was fear—a two-sided kind of fear.

On one side, I heard the voice saying, “Who would listen to you?”
That voice is familiar. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is in Jeremiah, where God tells him, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you… I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
And Jeremiah answers, “But I’m too young.” 
God responds: “Don’t say that.”

I believe many of us—maybe all of us—have a “don’t say that” in our lives. A moment where fear tries to argue with our calling.

Moses said he wasn’t a good speaker.
Gideon said he was from the weakest tribe and that he was the least in his family.
We all have that thing—that inner objection we raise when God calls us higher.

My “don’t say that” is: “You’re too unaccomplished” to contribute anything important.
And so, I wondered, “Who would want to listen to me?”

But lately—especially since I’ve started preaching again—I’ve noticed something. As I express myself, and more importantly as I express who God is, people respond. They hear something that speaks to them.

And then, the other side of fear shows up.
Not “What if nobody listens?”
But “What if people actually do listen?”
What if they come to you looking for wisdom? What if they make choices based on something you’ve said? Can you carry that responsibility? What if you’re wrong?”
I would never want to mislead anyone or say something that ends up causing harm.

So I had fear pulling at me from both directions—afraid of being ignored and afraid of being heard. You can see how complicated I made the whole thing.

But in the end, I realized something. The most important thing—at least for me right now—is expression. Self-expression. Soul-expression. God-expression.

These thoughts and words can’t just keep rattling around in my head. I’ve noticed that when I speak, especially when I speak what I believe God has given me to say, it often lands in people’s hearts. It helps. People ask to hear more. But every time that happens, my “don’t say that” reappears, whispering, “You’re too unaccomplished. Let a more credentialed person say
it.”

Here’s what I’ve learned, though: when you name your “don’t say that,” when you drag it into the light, it loses much of its power. In the dark, it manipulates you. But in the light, you can recognize it for what it is.

Now when I feel that fear, I say to myself, “That’s just my ‘don’t say that’ talking. I was created to make a contribution to this world.” And I’ve noticed—it always shows up when God is calling me to something higher. So I’m learning not to listen to it.

And that brings me here.

I’m not starting this blog to build a huge following, nor to debate the internet about what’s true and what’s not. I’m just here to be expressed. To make sure I’m not sitting on any words or gifts God has given me. To make sure that even though I’m not of this world, I’m still in it.

And to be in it?
You’ve got to join the conversation.

So here I am. I’m in it now.