Free To Be A Beginner

We watched from the balcony as my 6 year old daughter was doing a circuit in her beginner gymnastics class. She ran toward the vault, bounced off the springs, landed on a large mat and threw her hands straight up in the air. She then went around to perform the other tasks in her circuit, working on a bridge, attempting a cart wheel, more springing, more bouncing, more hands in the air. My 9 year old son leaned over to me.

"Mom, when is Karis actually going to do real gymnastics? Why are they just playing around?" He asked.

"This is real gymnastics," I said.

From where we were sitting we could see the whole gym buzzing with activity. There were girls, who to us looked like Olympic athletes, swinging on the uneven bars, practicing routines on the balance beam, flipping through the air on the vault, and doing tumbling routines all across the floor. Being completely new to the gymnastics scene, we were amazed by something incredible happening in every direction that we looked.

"No, I mean real gymnastics like that," he said, watching a girl sprint toward the vault, jump, and twist and flip through the air.

"Well, this is real gymnastics too. She is just a beginner. This is the first step in learning to do that," I answered.

From our vantage point, it was pretty cool to see every step of the process taking place below. We saw the beginners to the advanced classes and many levels in between.

How often we want to jump straight to the advanced class! I know I do. I just want to be able to do "the thing" and be good at it. In college I went to a concert and was amazed watching a girl on stage play the guitar. "Yes, I want to learn to do that!" I thought. I bought a starter guitar with the excitement and anticipation of being an awesome guitarist soon. A few days later, I knew a few cords and had blisters on all of my fingers. It was hard and it hurt! I wanted to know how to play that guitar, but I discovered that I didn't really want to be a beginner, I wanted to get to the good stuff. I wanted to be able to just play, but in order to get there I'd have to put in the time and the effort to get there. I'm sad to say I lost that guitar in an apartment move, surely if it had not been for that I would have been pro by now. ;)

Currently I am learning how to be a beginner. I am learning that every step in the process is significant. That doing the small, maybe insignificant-feeling beginner tasks, learning the skills, are an essential part of the process. Before you can flip off the vault, you have to jump up and throw your hands in the air...before you can play the guitar without even thinking about it, you have to first learn the chords.

For me, this is personal and vulnerable. God put a dream in my heart to begin to write a few years ago. I was afraid of the dream.

"Me? I'm not a trained writer! Surely not me, what would I even write about. Nope, you've got the wrong girl. There are plenty of good writers out there already. What if I'm no good, what if I fail."

Fear, excuses. But I knew what God was asking of me. I felt the continual pull in my heart. He was not demanding, but rather inviting me to be a part of something He had for me, something great and significant if I would trust Him and obey. I wrote in my journal what I sensed God was saying to me, "It is time to pick up your pen, beloved." God was inviting me, but I could refuse.

"I have small kids, I do not have time to write."

I justified my inaction, but it was always there, the tender nudge that I was being called to write. Ever patient, God waited for me to say yes.

"Alright God, I will write. What would you have me write, I offer my pen to you."

And just like that I bounced on the little vault for the first time and threw up my arms to Him in surrender and in praise. It may not have looked like much, but I believe that tiny step was the beginning and more significant than I will ever know.

From there I began to take small beginner steps. At first it was getting another journal and just beginning to write. When my hand cramped to the point of becoming a hindrance, I bought a laptop from someone off of Craigslist and called it a birthday present to myself. And then came another step, more vulnerable than before, I told someone. And do you know what, she didn't laugh at me, she encouraged me, she believed in me. "I have always seen you as a writer. Now you have to think of yourself as a writer," she told me. But if I am truly honest, I didn't really believe it. In my mind, I was "just playing around." Like my son deemed beginner gymnastics not "real gymnastics," inwardly I felt the same way. If I could not do a real vault and stick the landing, I was not a real gymnast...If I did not publish a best seller, I was not a writer.

And slowly, I started to believe. I called myself a writer, quietly, in my own head where no one could hear or laugh at me. Then to a very trusted inner circle. Like a seed that had sprouted into a small, still weak and vulnerable plant, the dream continued to grow.

I began to work on a word file on my computer. My document is called "Fearless and Free." I began to process the ways that God was taking me from one who was fearful and afraid to one who was growing to be courageous and free. I wrote about how He wanted to replace my fearfulness with faithfulness. I wrote about what healthy fear looked like, the fear of the Lord, versus unhealthy and unholy fear that paralyzes us and suffocates those we love. I wrote and I wrote. But this was all in a very safe space. No one else could read it. No one could call it bad writing, or disagree with me, or even worse, disapprove of me.

Around this time, God revealed to me my lifelong thread of "seeking approval". More about this later, but here is the bottom line. If I were to write, I had to have a solid foundation of where my approval was found...it had to be found in Christ. First and foremost in knowing God approved of me, not because of anything I had done but because of what Jesus done. And next in knowing that it would not be in my success or failure as a writer, but rather in my willingness and obedience to try in which God would delight. The work that He did in my heart freed me to be a beginner.

Fast forward to last summer and the dream became a little less hazy and hypothetical (what if I write a book) to a tangible next step...what if I start a blog. Again, this step was even more vulnerable than the last, and I had more excuses than you can imagine. People could actually read this, it was no longer hidden and safe, it would be out there, exposed.

"A blog? I don't even like to read blogs unless it's to find a recipe, why would I write one?"

"There are already a million blogs out there, we do not need one more."

"Someone else has already said what I would say better than me."

"I am not good at technology."

"I do not know how to start a blog."

These were some of my excuses, but at the heart of it was the same old fear. What if I am bad at it, what if it seriously stinks, what if no one reads it, what if I get criticized, what if people disapprove of me. And there it was.

Once the lie became clear, I remembered the truth God had shared with me. "Jennifer, I approve of you. Your worth is not determined by what others think, you are valuable because of what I think of you. I have made you well, I have made you for a purpose. I have created you for good works that I prepared before hand for you to do. I invite you to be a part of this journey, to trust me and say yes." And once again I was secure, I was safe, I was free. Free to do it badly, free for it to stink, free for others to disapprove, free for no one to read it, because God approved of me, God loved me. I was free to learn, I was free to be a beginner.

And so here we are, at the beginning of a something new together. I am learning to be free to be a beginner. To be willing to say yes to something outside of my comfort zone. To give myself grace to learn, room to grow, knowing that God is pleased with my obedience and that is enough. And that as I continue to take steps, to say yes, to try, I will not stay a beginner forever. As it says in Philippians 1:6, “I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Why do I share this long story? I'm guessing I'm not the only one out there who needs courage to try something new, even if it potentially means being bad at it at first. Is there something that is stirring in your heart? That you might even be afraid to admit to out of fear that you may fail at it? Maybe God is asking you to take the first steps along side of me. Maybe you need to hear the words that He spoke to me...

"___________, I approve of you. Your worth is not determined by what others think, you are valuable because of what I think of you. I have made you well, I have made you for a purpose. I have created you for good works that I prepared before hand for you to do. I invite you to be a part of this journey, to trust me and say yes."

Like a parent watching their child take their first steps, God delights in each new step you take in obedience, in faith. Maybe the first step for you is saying yes to Jesus for the first time. Maybe it is knowing that you do not need to win His approval, but hearing that He loves you already. Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Maybe the first step is receiving that kind of love and saying yes to a relationship with Him.

Or maybe it is taking the next step, of believing that He has good plans for your life, of being willing to trust Him, of being willing do what He asks you to do whether it makes sense to you or not. Maybe you need to forgive someone, maybe you need to ask a friend to have coffee, maybe you need to join a Bible study or a start a small group, maybe you need to sign up for a mission trip, maybe you need to buy a guitar, maybe you need to start a blog. You may not be good at it at first, and that's ok. God delights in you saying yes.

And the more steps you take in faith, the better of a walker you will be. One step at a time and we will no longer be beginners. We will run. We will vault. And you better believe we are going to stick that landing.