Can God Really Use Me When I'm This Afraid?

By Angela D. Thomas, DrPH, MPH, MBA

Yes. God does not wait for your fear to disappear before He uses you. The same morning the women were still trembling at the empty tomb, He handed them the most important message in history and sent them to go tell it. Fear was in the room, and He used them anyway.

Let me step on a toe real quick. A lot of us are sitting on an assignment right now, waiting to stop being afraid before we move. Waiting to feel ready. Waiting to feel qualified. And I need you to know that if you wait for the fear to leave first, you will be waiting forever, because that is not how God works.

Watch how He did it that Sunday.

Who Did Jesus Trust With the First Announcement?

Women. Scared women. He rose from the dead, the single most important event in all of human history, and the very first people He entrusted with the news were a group of women still shaking at a graveside. He could have appeared to kings. He could have marched into the temple and shown the religious leaders. He chose the women, and He chose them while they were afraid.

And look at how they carried it. Matthew 28:8 (NKJV) says, "So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word." Read that again, because it is one of the most freeing sentences in the whole Bible. Fear and great joy, in the same body, at the same time, and they ran anyway. They did not wait to calm all the way down. They did it afraid.

Plant the Seed and Let God Do the Watering

Now here is the part that will free you from needing a certain outcome. Those women ran all the way to the disciples, out of breath, carrying the best news anybody has ever carried. And Luke 24:11 (NKJV) says, "And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them." They obeyed perfectly and still got dismissed. The men called it foolishness.

So was their obedience wasted? Not even a little bit. Because Peter, the same Peter who had denied Jesus three times and was surely carrying a whole load of shame, got up and ran to that tomb to see for himself. The seed those women planted is what got Peter moving. They did not convince a single soul. They just planted. God handled the rest.

Hear me, your job is not to be the convincer. Your job is to be obedient. You are not responsible for whether they believe you, receive you, or clap for you. You are responsible for planting the seed God told you to plant. Let God do the watering. Let God do the growing. Some of us are frozen stiff because we are trying to control a harvest that was never ours to control in the first place.

And watch what God did with Peter on down the road. That same Peter who ran to the tomb carrying his shame is the very one Jesus would later restore and use to preach a sermon that added thousands of souls to the church in a single day. So when you plant your little seed and it looks like absolutely nothing happened, understand that you may be watering the front end of somebody else's whole restoration. You do not get to see the end of the seed from where you are standing right now. Plant it anyway and let God run the harvest.

What Does the Bible Say About Serving God While You're Afraid?

It says move anyway. Over and over that morning, the first words out of the angel's mouth and out of Jesus' own mouth were, do not be afraid. Not because feeling fear is a sin, but because fear will try to sit you down right when God is telling you to get up. Matthew 28:5-6 (NKJV) says, "But the angel answered and said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said.'" He acknowledged the fear, and then He handed them the assignment anyway.

And let me say this clearly to every woman reading, because that morning preached it louder than any sermon could. God used a woman's womb to bring Jesus into the world, and God used women to be the very first to announce that He was alive. Do not you ever let anybody tell you that you do not have value in this kingdom. The whole resurrection message got its first legs because some frightened women obeyed. Women got value. Period.

He Needs You. Yes, You.

So let me say the tool as plainly as I can. He needs you. Yes, you. Not the you that has it all together. Not the fearless you that you keep waiting to become. He needs the you that is standing here right now, nervous and unsure, to go do the thing and tell the thing. He needs you to act whether you are afraid or not, and whether they believe you or not.

Do it afraid. God can use afraid. He has been using afraid since Sunday morning.

Take this to the Word yourself. Matthew 28:1-10, Luke 24:1-12.

What This Means for You

What has God already told you to do that you have been putting off until the fear finally goes away?

Yesterday we got you up off the grave of the past. Today we sent you out to plant a seed, scared and all. Next up, what to do when God feels completely absent and you cannot sense Him anywhere.

I teach God's Word weekly inside the SheShed Community, and this is exactly the kind of teaching that hits different when you're in the room for it. The replay of this teaching, “The Awesome Reveal,” is available inside the community as well. Come sit with us.