Go Ahead: A Woman of Impact Message with Willow Weston

Willow: 00:00:00

Hey, friends. So glad you hopped on the Collide podcast today. I hope that you are having a great day. I have an amazing interview for you.

We're in the middle of our Women of Impact series. And we're doing this series because we know that women want to contribute. We want to be used to do amazing things. We want to impact the world.

We want to make a difference.

And so we have known this for years at Clyde because we spend so much time with women, and yet so often there's these obstacles that get in the way of us truly making an impact.

And so we created a course that has, I don't know, 70 some classes in it, and you can learn from these women, but we thought, why not have some of these women pop on the podcast so you could learn from them? So today you get to hear from a woman of impact. And I know it will impact you. So check it out.

I have two teenagers, so there are a lot of new words I'm learning, and maybe some of you guys can resonate. But on occasion, I'll throw out one of these generationally hip phrases into the mix with my kids.

And apparently I use them in all the wrong ways at all the wrong times. And I kind of started purposely doing that. And it's like my new hobby. So the kids say big body bend.

So I'll be stretching and say this because my body's bending and my kids will roll their eyes because apparently I'm supposed to use that phrase to describe a hunk with big muscles and carved abs, but not a hunk because kids don't use the word hunk anymore. That's not cool. That's weird. Mom. I'm also supposed to say straight fire but not be talking about fire.

Straight fire is what you say when you see someone, like, catch a touchdown pass with one hand. And when you see like a ski stunt that could have paralyzed a guy, but instead he nails the landing and a K2 sponsorship.

I mean, that's straight fire. Straight fire is when something is amazing and today's gonna be straight fire.

And I've also been learning that sick is no longer the description of your status when you have the flu. It's supposed to be a brag that means something's awesome. That's a sick shirt you're wearing today.

I'm also learning that apparently calling someone Jerry is no longer a name at my kids school. It's used as an insult, which really concerns me.

For all the Jerry's out there in the world, I should start a confused mom's blog, and the kids always tell me, that's so extra. Mom, don't be so extra.

What they mean, I've learned, is that extra is like, don't show up to the high school basketball game with snack bags covered in smiley face stickers, passing them out to all the players. When they say someone is extra, they mean someone is excessive too much. Like over the top.

Someone who's trying to prove something dramatically so to a teenager. Extra is coming across like, you tried to look good at prom, which I actually did try to look good at prom.

Extra is raising your hand in class like you care. Extra is crying in the halls every single time the boy that you crush on walks by.

Extra is doing a PowerPoint presentation to communicate how you're feeling about your crush. I'm being told that extra is a bad thing. Like sick is a good thing. But if we're honest, I think we all desire to be extraordinary.

I don't know about you, but I'm not shooting for subpar. I'm not hoping to live a life story that can be labeled as inconsequential. I want more than that, and I believe you do too.

That's the whole point of why we're even doing this course. I think one of our greatest fears as humans is that our lives at the end, with no time left, will be summed up as ordinary and unnoteworthy.

And the last thing we want to do is look back and see that there are chapters that can be described as like humdrum, run of the mill, uninspiring. None of us think of our future and aim to be insignificant. No one is going for mediocre.

We don't tune into TED talks that inspire us to live so so lives. We don't make vision boards with lofty goals to be decent.

We don't set out for college and invest thousands and thousands of dollars to have nothing to write home about. We don't beg God to answer our prayers to bring about the not worth mentioning in our lives. We don't hope people read our biography and yawn.

No one is like, I dream to live a story that's not worth telling. We want to live extraordinary lives. We want the long and short of the plot to experience exceptional moments along the way.

We want the pages to chronicle something remarkable. And this desire that we have in us is why we cry when we watch American Idols. Okay, maybe only I cry when American Idol's on.

Because right before my very eyes, I see someone who felt muted, someone who felt dim and unnoticed and Then they're discovered to have within them something out of this world, special, destined. And when they're discovered to be extraordinary, I cry.

And that's when those darn teenagers of mine laugh at me and I say, that was straightforward Fire. Our desire to experience the extraordinary is why we set goals.

It's why we hustle and chase, all in pursuit to experience something awesome that we cannot now see. This desire for the remarkable is why we pray for miracles. It's why we believe in God for bigger things than we ourselves can make possible.

Our desire to live lives that are far beyond ordinary is why we lean into the work of helping the world become a better place. And this desire we have to be a part of something incredible is why we adopt orphans and give money away to help people in need.

This desire within us is why we love redemption stories. Brokenness is so real to each of us that to see redemption and good come from broken places tells us the extraordinary is possible.

And if it's possible for her and her and he and them, then maybe it's possible for us. This desire that we have to live extraordinary stories is one we've had since we were little.

In elementary school, I wrote a book called Willow's Whispers, and it was super cheese. In fact, I found it the other night, and it has stories about unicorns and plane crashes and a poem about a mouse eating my blouse.

And for some crazy reason way back then, I got picked from my class to travel to a young author's conference and read this book. Its cover is actually made of tin foil, and I got to read it to an actual audience.

And that was one of the first moments I experienced an invitation to be a part of something that offered me the chance to write a story that mattered all. Growing up, I loved basketball as much as I loved boys. My best friend's dad was the first black mayor in Washington state.

He was also the town's gravedigger and the school janitor. And every weekend he'd open the school for my friend and I and we'd shoot hoops all day.

When we were in elementary school, the high school girls basketball team took state year after year. It was a super big deal in our town, and those of us following in their footsteps were trained up in camps and dreamed of doing what they were doing.

And I remember this special night in maybe like fifth grade where each one of us got one of the players personalized jerseys to wear for an event. They handpicked whose jersey we each got based on who they thought we had the Potential to be like.

We came out on stage in our hero shirts, doing ball drills in front of the entire community.

It wasn't just a night to celebrate the phenomenal story of our champs, but there was an invitation for those of us looking up to them that we too, could be a part of something out of the ordinary. That invitation made me shoot more free throws. It made me run lines faster. It made me want to become more than who I'd been growing up.

I was a single child with a single parent. So if I didn't entertain myself on ordinary Wednesdays, they'd become so dreadfully boring.

My mother would do accounting at home at night for the business that she owned. And I would stand there while she sipped wine in a cafe coffee mug, punching numbers on a very loud calculator.

And I would recite Martin Luther King Jr. Speeches. And my mom would say, you're such a neat kid. And when I read his words, I dreamed his dream.

And I could feel a rising up in me that wanted to do something that mattered, like I was learning was possible. And the more I began to hear of extraordinary stories, the more I wanted to live one.

And each of us have had this desire to live extraordinary lives since we were little girls. In fact, I might even argue we were born with this desire. It is like the umbilical cord that traces us to our extraordinary maker.

The very fact that we hope to live an extraordinary story is not something to feel ashamed about, not something to hide, not something to downplay or pretend is not within us. This desire is actually how we're supposed to feel. We were given one opportunity to live a story.

I wonder what God in all his majesty and splendor, in all his sovereignty and power, in all his creative genius and cleverness in making, you might say to you in the moments that you succumb to believing your one story might just have to be ordinary and inconsequential.

This innate hope, this running after such, this bend we have to live exceptional stories, points to our inherent desire for God and being in the center of God's best story for our lives. I want to dive into an infamous story in the Bible. In fact, it's so out of the ordinary that we often don't really know what to do with it.

And we're going to center around this passage in Matthew where Jesus walks on water to get to his disciples who are in the middle of a storm. And the crazy thing about this story is that Peter walks on water, too.

Peter was in a boat with several other guys, but Thousands of years later, guess whose story we're talking about? We are not talking about anybody else in that boat, just Peter. Why is that? We're talking about Peter because Peter took part in the extraordinary.

And the other guys just watched it. An extraordinary story is possible for each one of us.

And I think that somewhere along the way, life told those little girls who had big dreams to be a part of something extraordinary. That there's something about us that doesn't make the cut.

Life told us that other people are special, that they have special talents and favor and connection to God. Whatever special thing it is that we don't feel we have. Life told us to resign to being average because we aren't all that impressive.

And I think we stopped dreaming because a few dreams flopped. And I think some of us stopped praying because we didn't see results. And I think a few of us failed in front of an audience.

And the embarrassment of that halted all future risks. And I think we hate storms, so we stopped going outside. And I think our faith moved from asking God to move mountains to thanking God for dinner.

I think we once thought we had a fighting chance to do something monumental, and now we're just trying to win the war on laundry. We started to believe that God only lets a few of those he favors in to see his magic tricks.

So if you're real talented, if you can sing How Great Thou Art like Whitney Houston reincarnated, if you can look good in jeans and eat cheeseburgers, if you can get people to follow you, or if you can recite the Bible, or if you can do any of these kinds of things, then God might invite you in to experience the good stuff. I think we used to give Martin Luther King speeches, and the rising up in us got tired and gave up.

Culture shamed us for wanting to be a part of something amazing. And so we stopped trying. We stuffed those feelings down and agreed with our teenagers that that's so extra.

Somewhere along the way, the little girl in us was torn down, discouraged, mocked, stifled and calloused.

So now we run through all the reasons God won't show up, all the ways we don't have what it takes to write books and inspire justice like we once dreamed. All the ways we should stay safe, not risk failing and just sit in that boat and watch others take part in the extraordinary.

Because maybe extraordinary is just not in our reach. Yet Jesus tells us otherwise. As we see in the story of Peter, but also in the story of women all around us.

Women who feel ordinary are participating in the Extraordinary. This course has shown you that over and over and over again.

Every week I get to interview amazing women who are watching God unfold amazing stories in their lives on the Collide podcast. And their stories give me hope for my own. And I want to tell you about a few of them.

There's Barb Demorist, and a storm of breast cancer came at her in her 60s like a gale force wind. She teaches a session in this class.

And Barb found herself in a bathroom at church, not wanting to come out and reveal her mastectomy, when one of her dearest friends walked in with a Victoria's Secret bag. And inside was a knit prosthetic.

Barb put it on, stepped out of that bathroom with dignity and hope, and then started Knitted Knockers, which has now given 170 other women all over the world facing the storm of breast cancer dignity and hope. And then there's Kelly Wilkes, who attended an informational meeting about human trafficking.

And Kelly felt so disturbed by the devastating stories, but she also felt ordinary, with no big talents or resources to make a difference. But instead of just feeling sad, Kelly asked, what can I do, God? And she realized she can host a great party.

So she began hosting Freedom Dinners to raise awareness and funds, which led to the birth of Cider Press Lane. Check it out. It's an organization that now helps free women trapped in a life they did not choose.

And then there's Stephanie Brosma, who you also get to hear from in this course, who faced the tornado of her husband's betrayal. And she stepped out of her pain and anger and allowed God to put the pieces of her family back together.

And then Stephanie wrote a book called Reclaimed that is now being used to help other women put the pieces of their families back together. And then there's Summer Faith, who you also get to spend time with in this course.

And she was struggling herself with an unhealthy relationship with food, but instead of staying there, she reached out to Jesus for healing and now is being used by God to use that pain to coach other women with her organization called Healthy, Whole and Free. And then there's Kate all who faced the blow of her husband having a breakdown and losing his youth pastor job.

They had to go on food stamps with three little ones. And unexpectedly, their roles had to reverse out of necessity. And Kate had a friend who recognized a gift in her that she couldn't see in herself.

And so Kate jumped out of her plan to be a stay at home mom and started a business she was sure would fail and almost Six years later, Kate leads Simplepin Media, which has busted at the seams with 40 employees, a senior leadership team, and 150 business accounts or more. God's extraordinary plan is using Kate to provide for their family, raise up other women leaders, and bless others in need with her profits.

And then there's Mary DeMuth, who faced the devastation of being sexually abused and experienced the inability of people in the church to know how to help. As God began to heal her, he called her to walk out of her boat of silence.

She has now written 16 books, including We Too, calling the church to be a part of healing women instead of silencing them.

And there's Laura Wilkinson, who we have had come and speak at a collide conference, and she experienced the storm of a broken foot that threatened to crush her Olympic dreams right before trials. And Laura stepped out of disbelief with the odds against her.

She trained mentally, literally climbing the diving board on her knees and practiced thousands of dives from start to finish in her head because she couldn't do the dives in her body. Her team would cheer for her fake dives as though they were real.

Most people would have given up, but Laura banked on Jesus pulling off the impossible. And that landed Laura the gold. So the more I hear women's stories, the more I see that an extraordinary story is possible for each of us.

Everyday extraordinaries like these women that I just talked about in Peter, all have five things in common. We will discover what those five things are for our own lives as I walk us through Peter's walking on water story in Matthew 14.

This collision between Jesus and Peter invites us to understand that the extraordinary is right outside the place we sit, and it's ours for the taking. It's interesting because Jesus had just fed 5,000 hangry people with two loaves of bread and some sardines. It was an incredible sight to see.

And the people went mad. They were like the paparazzi on crack. And they wanted to force Jesus to be king. And Jesus will not be forced into our political demands.

We can't buy him off. We can't impress him with our earthly titles or sway him with the promise of followers. Jesus will only be king the way Jesus wants to be king.

And the crowd pressed into Jesus. So he insisted the disciples get into a boat and go ahead.

And you have to wonder, what did Jesus know the disciples would experience by journeying ahead without him? I would imagine that they might have wanted to stay with the crowd and see how all this excitement plays out.

But Jesus asked them to go ahead and they do. When God asks you to move away from the crowd, do you listen? Jesus gets the crowd to dismiss, which is potentially a miracle in and of itself.

And then he infamously goes up to a mountainside by himself to pray. The best thing we can do when we're surrounded by people who want to make us something we're not is to get away and be with our Father.

Well, the boat with the disciples was three to four miles out, surrounded by strong winds and high waves. These guys had been in a storm like this before, but last time Jesus was with them and this time he wasn't.

Last time Jesus was annoyingly taking a nap while they all peed their pants, terrified. And that's when they woke Jesus up and he told the wind and the waves what to do and they obeyed him.

But this time they're being tormented by a storm and the one who bosses the wind and waves around is nowhere to be seen.

Ad Mention: 00:21:19

Whether the dream is to build stronger community, write a book, start a non profit, tell your story, adopt a child, or take a step toward healing past wounds, Collide's Bible study Go Ahead will encourage you not to let risk aversion or fear get in the way of an invitation from God. What does an extraordinary life look like for you? What if your biggest dreams can come true?

k that centers around Matthew: 14:22

Go Ahead is available now on our website @wecollide.net.

Willow: 00:22:19

You have to think about this for a minute. If Jesus is all knowing, why would he send his disciples right into the middle of a storm? Would you conclude then that this storm was God's will?

Wiersbe, a theologian, wrote, the storm came because they were in the will of God and not, like Jonah, out of the will of God. Did Jesus know that the storm was coming? Certainly he did. Did he deliberately direct them into the storm? Yes.

They were safer in the storm, in God's will, than on land with the crowds out of God's will. So we have to be careful to never judge our security based on the basis of circumstances alone, which is an incredible challenge for most of us.

See, most of us judge our security based on our circumstances.

If Jesus sent them ahead knowing they would face this storm, we can assume, contrary to the cheap faith we've been Sold that being in God's will does not always assure smooth sailing. These guys were exhausted from battling the elements all night. And around 4am they saw what looked like a ghost and they started crying out in fear.

The Bible says Jesus went out to them walking on the lake. Apparently Jesus didn't own his own raft. And these guys, they come unglued and Jesus is like, hey, take courage. It's I don't be afraid.

This expression, it is I was often used by God in the Old Testament when he revealed himself. Based on what these guys in the storm heard and saw, they had to wonder if Jesus was actually God in their midst.

See, God was known to pull off miracles with water, right? God used Moses to part the Red Sea to set his people free. God wanted to confront an unbelieving nation who had put their faith in baal, the Rain God.

So he gave Elijah the ability to declare a drought and a downpour showering, showing them who's actually boss over the rain. God stopped the flow of the Jordan river so that his people would know he was with them.

God heard the Israelites complaining of thirst in the desert, wishing to go back to slavery. So God used Moses to call water out of a rock. God saw Jonah running from the call on his life. So he moved his divine chess pieces.

And as Jonah got tossed out of a boat, a whale opened its mouth at the right place at the right time to serve as a timeout until Jonah could get to a place to say yes to also being at the right place at the right time. There are so many miracles where God shows he has limitless power over water. And Jesus demonstrated the same.

Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding 2,000 years ago, which some of you still praise him for. Jesus healed a man born blind with his own spit and mud. Jesus could see through water to know where to catch fish.

And he demonstrated this crazy ability with Peter one time when he was experiencing some seriously disappointing fishing. And Jesus told Peter exactly where to put his nets. And the boat became so full of fish it almost sank.

Jesus did this again after he beat death like a boss. And then he showed up to Peter and the guys would say, hey, yo, I'm back.

And the guys were out on a boat, frustrated because they couldn't catch a darn thing. And Jesus directed their poles and they bagged 153 bad boys. And here Jesus was, defying gravity and walking on the very waves they feared.

I love that. I love that Jesus has the power to trod on the very thing that you And I fear Peter wants to do what Jesus is doing.

So he boldly yells, lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you on the water. And I'll tell you what, if you asked me to say a word so you could walk on water, I'd say the word just to watch you try and fail miserably.

Peter wasn't looking for the ghost like figure to say the word come. Peter was looking to hear Jesus's voice. And the people who live extraordinary stories, they listen to Jesus's voice in their storm.

I am so grateful that the first Bible study I ever did was about experiencing God. And I share about this in the dreams, discernment and vision section of this course.

But the truth that God speaks was something I learned right away when I began my relationship with Him.

And when we look for God around every corner, in every closed door and every open in breast cancer or an affair, when we listen for him on the mountaintops and in the valleys, when we ask him to speak, even in the middle of the storm, he will. God speaks through four things, His Word, the Bible, circumstances, people, and the Spirit. But he will never contradict His Word.

Meaning God will never tell you to lie when His Word says thou shall not lie. God will never tell you grace isn't yours for the taking. Because as you can see throughout the entirety of the Bible, grace wins again and again.

And God will not agree to your gossip about Susie and what a terrible sinner she is.

When God says, deal with the plank in your eye before the speck in, Susie says, and God will never tell you to swim in darkness when he's called you to be people of the light. The reasons we don't hear God are often the same reasons we don't hear each other. We aren't familiar with God's voice.

John 10:4 says, the shepherd goes on ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. We have to be in tune with Jesus tone, His inflection, his emphases.

We have to spend so much time with Jesus that we know his character, his every move, his rhythm. We have to soak up His Word in the Bible and memorize it so that it guides us like second nature.

When you know what the voice of God sounds like, you can decipher it even in the middle of a storm. The problem is, is that we have some spiritual selective hearing.

We're like spiritual teenagers, at least mine, where we can't hear things like do your chores or take out the garbage or walk the dog. But for Some crazy reason we can hear. Here's 10 bucks or want some ice cream?

Our hearing listens for what it hopes to hear and everything else we drown out. It's like we have those noise canceling headphones on that my son wears. We wear our pride and we wear our desire to rebel.

We wear our bitterness and our hardened hearts. We wear all sorts of God canceling headphones, and only we can take those off and choose to listen.

Another reason we don't hear God is that it's just too loud. Spotify's on, Alexa's telling jokes. Telemarketers are calling. Facebook's dinging the dogs barking.

The calendar's not supposed to be at nine places at once. The Yelp reviews are booing. The alarm clock is sounding. The parents are expecting. The kids are fighting, the bosses demanding.

The acquaintances are dming. The enemies are backstabbing. The culture is pushing in. Friends are leaving voicemails. It's no wonder we can't hear anything God is saying to us.

And sometimes we don't hear because we're doing all the talking. Sometimes it's because we're too busy to listen. There are all sorts of reasons we don't hear God's voice.

But I'll tell you what, when we desire to hear someone, we can even hear silence. I learned this from my kids. When they were little, I wanted to hear their voices in the grocery store or at a park or at a concert in a crowd.

I wanted to hear them when they woke up in the morning and at night when they were sick. I was so used to listening for them that I could even hear their silence. God speaks, friend. But hearing him requires the desire to start listening.

And that's just the thing, is that Peter knew Jesus voice. In fact, when Jesus and Peter first collided, Peter was with his brother in a boat fishing. And Jesus said, come, follow me.

Peter left everything to follow Jesus. And here, much later, Peter still wanted to imitate Jesus. Peter wanted to be in Jesus's orbit.

Because Peter knew that everything ordinary that Jesus touched, he made extraordinary. And Peter wanted that for his life.

And you got to notice that in this story, no one else in the boat was jumping at the chance to do what Jesus was doing. No one's doing that. I mean, why would Peter want to leave the boat? None of us want to leave our boat.

It's in the boat that we feel like we're surrounded by company. Our boats promise safety. Our boats are what we trust to assure our security. Our boats are our float plan.

But the thing I know to be true about Jesus is that he's not afraid to call us to leave everything. He will ask us to hand him our life, our pain and our dreams. He will challenge us to step out of the crowd.

He will call us to let go of what falsely floats us, enslaves us, identifies us or owns us. He will challenge us to step away from the things that we think save us so that he can save us.

Jesus will call us to let go of our pride and pick up a cross. He'll also call us to step on the stormy waters if it means that the extraordinary we were made for is on the other side.

And though that may scare the heck out of us, what's scarier? Stepping out into the extraordinary or living a life that at its very end can be summed up as safe, predictable and unnoteworthy.

I love the Donald Miller quote.

If you watched a movie, he says, about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn't cry at the end when he drove off the lot testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn't tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie. You know, go home and put a record on to think about the story you'd seen.

Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo. But we spend years actually living those stories and expect our lives to be meaningful.

Donald Miller continues to say, the truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won't make a life meaningful either. See, I think Peter wanted a meaningful story more than a safe one. He seemed to grasp that the best place to be is with Jesus.

And Jesus responds to Peter with a big fat go ahead. Insinuating it be possible to do the impossible. And everyone else stayed in the boat, but not Peter. No.

Peter, in utter trust, lifted one foot and set it upon the waves and began to walk on water. It was so extra. People who live extraordinary stories step out of the boat and they keep stepping out of boats.

Peter did something extraordinary and I think that always gets missed. I think we always jump right away to the part where he sank. And we will, but. But that's where we go.

But let's just stop for half a second and take in the fact that Peter walked on water. Before Peter stepped out of that boat, he had to have run through the list of limitations like we do.

We desire to participate in amazing things, but we hyper focus on all the things that we believe limit us from doing so. We think we're limited by our DNA or our personality or our family of origin, our health diagnosis or our speech impediment.

We think we're limited by the demons we fight and the emotional baggage we carry and our battle with depression. We think we're limited by a crazy busy schedule and lack of financial resources and people's expectations.

And Peter gets it because he was limited by gravity. I think we're really good at telling ourselves all the ways we suck and all the ways we'll fail and all the ways we don't have what it takes.

When we want to be a part of something big, we make ourselves feel really small. My IQ is too low. My butt is too big. My family's too crazy. My relationship with God is too inconsistent. Bank account is too pitiful.

My talents are too boring. My hair is too flat. My influence is non existent. We use limiting statements. Limiting statements sound like I don't deserve more. I shouldn't try.

I'm not enough. My dreams will never be in reach. God won't choose me to participate in something special. I can't. I hear limiting language like this all the time.

The woman who desires to go back to school in her 40s says to herself, I'm too old. God's power will not be limited by your age. The woman who wants to adopt says, I don't have enough money.

God's power will not be limited by your resources. The woman who desires to be freed from what enslaves her says, I'm not strong enough. God's power will not be limited by your strength.

The woman who wants to break out of the life she calls boring says, I'm not good at anything. God's power is not limited by your abilities. The woman who wants to choose differently than the crowd hears, you'll look like a fool.

Well, God's power is not limited by what people think of you.

The woman who thinks God is telling her to start something dismisses it because she says to herself, you have enough to do and God's power is not limited by your to do list. The woman who wants to impact lives but jumps back in her boat after sinking and grabs the oars vowing, never risk again.

God's power is not limited by your fear. You cannot limit Jesus because you feel limited. You cannot predict Jesus's abilities based on yours.

You cannot suppose that Jesus power is based on your weakness. You can't assume that the universal principles that apply to everyone else apply to Jesus.

You can't stipulate the conditions and expect Jesus to fit within them. Jesus can do what man cannot do.

Jesus's power is limitless and if you want to experience the power of God, I encourage you to grab our Bible study book called Personal and Powerful. But you can sit around and you can list up all the reasons why you can't be a part of extraordinary things. But Jesus isn't ordinary.

So live by your capabilities and only be capable of doing what you can. But move toward Jesus. And that's when you get to participate in things that defy all your own limits.

Everything ordinary that Jesus touches, he makes extraordinary. Jesus turned a little boy's lunch into a feast for the masses. Jesus walked by a fig tree and showed he had the ability to curse it to wither.

Jesus sent demons out of a man into some pigs that ran off a cliff and drowned. Jesus healed a woman who'd been bleeding for 12 years and then turned around and raised a 12 year old girl from the dead over and over again.

Jesus displays a limitless power that defies scientific laws and expected norms.

Jesus demonstrates power over nature, over evil, over death, and promises to share this power with us and it if Jesus can take a woman facing the terror of cancer and use her to impact 170,000 other women in the world just like her, what can't Jesus do with your pain?

If Jesus can take a girl who feels like she has no special talents and use her ability to host beautiful dinners to free sex trafficked women, what can't God do with your insecurities about feeling average? If Jesus can take a woman whose marriage was torn apart by adultery and put the pieces back together, and then use her to help other families, what?

What can't Jesus do with your mess? If Jesus can take a woman with an eating disorder and heal her and then use her to heal other women, what can't God do with your struggles?

If Jesus can take a mom whose husband had a breakdown, lost his job and they had no money to start a thriving huge company, what extraordinary thing can't he do with your unexpected circumstances?

If Jesus can take a woman who was sexually abused and use her voice that was once silent to call the church to rise up to be a part of the solution and not the problem, what can he do with your story? If Jesus can take a broken foot and win gold, what can't he do with the obstacles in the way of your dreams?

People with extraordinary stories trust God's limitless power when they are being held back by their own limitations. Peter didn't step out of the boat because he trusted his own capabilities. Peter Trusted Jesus's capability.

When Peter acted on faith, he walked on water. When Peter saw the wind and acted on fear, he sank. Fear sinks you every time. Peter often did a dance with fear and faith, just like we do.

One page he experienced a miracle, and the next he swam in doubt. When Peter was afraid that he would be unsuccessful at his job, he was overcome by negativity.

When Peter was afraid that Jesus would have to die so we could find life, Peter got in Jesus way. When Peter was afraid of Jesus arrest, he lopped off a guy's earlobe.

When Peter was afraid to be seen as a Christian, he denied having anything to do with Jesus. Peter failed and sank and ran and hid and denied God. He did in a lifetime all the things I feel like I pack in on your average Friday.

And as Peter sank, he cried out, lord, save me. And Jesus reached out his hand and caught Peter. Jesus saved Peter, which Jesus is in the business of doing. That's why we call him the Savior.

Some of you might need to cry out for some saving, even right now. And then Jesus said, you of little faith. Why did you doubt? Jesus wanted Peter to learn from sinking. Sinking can be life's gift.

To illustrate faith's power, sometimes we need to sink so we can recognize the power of faith in the power of fear. One finds us crying out for rescue and the other finds us doing what we never thought possible.

As Peter learns this, more of his moments, paragraphs and pages find him choosing faith over fear.

By faith, Peter ended up receiving forgiveness for his betrayal, saying yes to God's calling on his life, healing a man who couldn't walk, and raising a dead girl back to life. Extraordinary stories aren't always extraordinary. Sometimes they have chapters where we sink.

But ultimately, people who live extraordinary stories rise back up and choose not to let fear win. Peter took a risk. You and I, we want extraordinary lives with no risk, no cost, no discomfort. So much has happened since we were little girls.

So now we want a high probability of success before taking a leap because we can't handle the idea of more failure. We want the promise of a 0% failure rate before jumping enthusiastically like a fool towards Jesus, attempting to do something impossible.

Because we don't want more pain. We want a God who won't ask us to step out on stormy waters because we don't like to feel unsafe. We want an extraordinary life and a safe God.

And I'm afraid the two do not go hand in hand. Mark Buchanan says, a safe God asks nothing of us.

He never drives us to our knees in hungry, desperate praying and never sets us on our feet in fierce, fixed determination. He never makes us bold to dance.

The safe God never whispers in our ears anything but greeting card slogans and certainly never asks that we embarrass ourselves by shouting out from the rooftops. A safe God neither inspires awe, nor worship, nor sacrifice.

If you and I play it safe, that's exactly what our one life will be described as the eulogy at our funeral will read. They were such a safe person. They always made sure they had their seatbelt on. They never snuck treats into the movie theater.

They always protected themselves from looking like they failed. They were so good at steering clear of risk. They didn't waste their time on nonsensical ideas such as miracles and impossibilities.

And boy, did they look good in their Volvo and their boat. Nothing remarkable can be written about our life without some sort of risk. We're so afraid to fail. But Jesus will catch our fail.

See Peter, he failed, but he failed forward. And here's the difference. Failure mocks you. But failing forward finds you stronger than you were before you stepped out.

Failure makes you feel like you still need rescue. But failing forward finds you witnessing your rescuer. Failing makes you feel alone.

But failing forward finds you sinking right into the arms of Jesus. Failing covers you in shame. Failing forward finds you empowered to keep stepping out. Failure tells you never try again.

But failing forward finds you in a boat with your God giving you a pep talk to get you back out there again. I don't know what God is asking you to risk right now in your life, but knowing him, he might be asking you to do something really, really brave.

Leaving everything and following Jesus is a risk. Starting something new is a risk. Going in an entirely new direction is a risk. Dreaming again is a risk. Praying for a miracle is a risk.

Fighting cancer is a risk. Telling your story is a risk. Stepping foot into church and community again is a risk. Getting help is a risk.

But let me remind you, people who live extraordinary stories risk knowing that if they fail, they fail forward towards Jesus. Peter found himself back in the boat with Jesus. This wasn't failure. This was the making of a great story.

The storm died and everyone in the boat said that was straight fire. And then they worshiped this extraordinary God.

You can be sure that Jesus would meet Peter in more boats in the chapters ahead and Jesus would call him to keep stepping out of them. And like Peter, we get to choose. And our choices will determine the story that our life will tell.

The invitation awaits Go ahead, stay put in the ordinary or walk toward he who is extraordinary and he'll do in your life what only he can. You choose if you enjoyed that episode. Friend, it was taken from our incredible course, the Women of Impact Course.

And if you're interested in grabbing hold of that for yourself today, we want to give you a half off code so that you can get it for just 49.99. There's like 70 some classes within that course taught by women who are actually making an impact in the world.

So head to our website or click the link link in the show notes to grab the course today. Friend, I just hope that you know, as you continue to collide, that God wants to use you in this world to do amazing things that impact other people.

So be encouraged.