For more than twenty years, I had a successful legal career as a trial attorney and judge. I knew how to walk into a courtroom and carry the weight of it. That woman was sure of her footing.
Then God began stirring something new in me, a call to coach and minister and speak life over women and girls searching for their purpose and calling. And the honest truth is that my first response was not excitement. It was fear. I knew how to be a judge. I did not know how to be whoever this new assignment was asking me to become.
If you have ever felt that, you are facing the fifth and final mindset that keeps women from trusting God’s plan. It is the fear of becoming. It rarely shows up when you are far from your calling. It shows up the moment you get close, when a quiet voice says, I’m afraid to become who God created me to be. So, you stay in the version of yourself you already know, and you call it being careful.
God calls you by who you wwill become.
Meet Gideon in Judges chapter 6. When we find him, he is hiding in a winepress, threshing wheat in secret so his enemies will not steal it. He is frightened and small. Then an angel appears and says, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!” (Judges 6:12, NLT). God did not greet the scared man Gideon was being that day. He greeted the warrior Gideon was about to become.
God does the same with you. He calls you based on the woman He already sees, not the woman you have been.
You are not the one who has to make it happen.
Here is what takes the pressure off you. The becoming is God’s work, not yours. Paul promised that God, “who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished” (Philippians 1:6, NLT). And “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT). You are simply growing into the woman God already says you are.
The strength is His, too. He is able, “through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20, NLT). The “more” you fear is not too big for the One who lives in you.
Go with the strength you have.
So, what is your part? Hear what God told Gideon. “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” (Judges 6:14, NLT). He did not say wait until you feel ready. He said go as you are. When Gideon protested that he was the least in his family, God answered simply, “I will be with you” (Judges 6:16, NLT).
Your readiness was never the point. God’s presence is. As Paul wrote, “I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13, NLT). And like Joshua, you can “be strong and courageous” and refuse to be afraid, because the Lord your God goes with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9, NLT).
Friend, the woman you are afraid to become is not a stranger. She is the woman God has been forming in you all along, and He is closer to finishing her than you think. So, stop waiting until you feel like her. Take the step in front of you, and watch the God of infinitely more do what your striving never could.
