Imitation Requires Action

It’s 5:07 am. I’ve been awake for 2 ½ hours already. My husband woke up at 2:30 am feeling God’s prompting to go memorize scripture, our 3-year-old son heard him moving around and cried for me, and lots of tearful snuggles and a cup of coffee later I’m now wide awake. While Cam & I have started getting up pretty early (4:45 am every single day!), 2:30 am is a bit earlier than I’d prefer to start my day.

18 days ago God asked me to wake early and meet with Him “in the stillness of the morning” for 30 days. I don’t see myself going back, though. Cam & I have begun to go to bed at hilariously-early hours (last night we crawled into bed at 7:30 pm!) instead of our normal routine of crashing after putting the kids to bed and mindlessly watching screens until we felt like peeling ourselves off the couch and plopping into bed. Changing up the order of the hours in our day has given us space. Mornings wide-open with space, with possibility, with quiet, with calm. And connection: to each other and to our Creator.

I like to start most of these mornings by taking a look at the YouVersion verse of the day. I grab my journal, pray for God to quiet any voices but His, copy the verse of the day into my journal, then sit and listen for God’s voice.

Today’s verse of the day gave me a gentle smack – it’s an area I really struggle with. God really called me out with this one … but it took a minute for it to formulate.

Ephesians 5:1

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are His dear children.

Ephesians 5:1, NLT

This is one of those verses that’s easy to sagely nod your head at then do absolutely nothing about. If you’re anything like me, you love to collect great concepts and have the best intentions of implementing them. If you’re anything like me, you struggle to actually make that happen.

I asked God, “Father, where do I need to work on better imitating You?” His response was one I could’ve seen coming but at which I still let out a frustrated puff of air.

Letting thought flow into action at My direction. No hesitation. Just knowing, then doing … Imitation requires action.

I’m a chronic thinker. I’m a chronic idea-haver. I’m a chronic project-starter.

I am not a chronic project-finisher. I’m pretty sure this is the curse of multi-passionate creatives with ADHD, but still.

In fact, I’m so not a project-finisher that 1. I started a new audiobook yesterday quite literally titled Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done and 2. this website doesn’t have a finished homepage. It’s all stock photos and preexisting content.

Back to the point at hand.

We are called to imitate God, and imitation requires action. It requires doing. Having good intentions is the fun part. Actually doing something about it is where I get tripped up.

Something God’s been doing lately is giving me some words to work with then asking me questions to dig deeper and examine my own heart.

What blocks action?

That’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it? We all want to be better. We all want to improve, make progress, show up in the ways we’ve deemed valuable. The hard part is taking those desires and throwing some oomph behind them. I’m not the only one to struggle with this. Paul shares his own struggle in Romans.

¹⁵ I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. ¹⁶ But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

¹⁸ And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[a] I want to do what is right, but I can’t. ¹⁹ I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. ²⁰ But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

Romans 7:15-20, NLT

“I want to do what is right, but I can’t.” Is there a more relatable sentence in the entire Bible? I’m sure the answer is yes, somewhere, but my point stands. Human beings are, in general, not the best project-finishers. We have lots of great ideas, but a solid chunk of us are more about the ideation than the execution.

Back to the question God asked me: What blocks action?

For me, I jotted a few things down before realizing a common thread: fear.

“Anxiety, fear of rejection, fear of making wrong decision, fear of hearing God wrong …”

Then in all caps, “FEAR IS THE ENEMY OF ACTION.”

Fear is the Enemy of Action

Tell me if you can relate to this: during COVID I had become friendly with a neighbor of ours, a 60-something single man who lived alone with his gentle giant of a dog. I heard through the grapevine that he’d come down with COVID so I decided to make him some soup. (Side note: I make fantastic chicken noodle soup.) I spent a full day brewing up the stock, chopping ingredients, and letting it all simmer before dropping my big, bright red Dutch oven on his doorstep along with a note wishing a speedy recovery and offering any help he might need, knocking, and retreating back to my apartment.

For the rest of the day I was riddled with anxiety. What if he’s vegetarian or vegan and he’s offended that I just gave him meat? What if he thinks I’m weird or a stalker or something? What if this makes him feel like he has to do something in return and is causing more stress than relief? What if, what if, what if?

For several days I gnawed my nails down to nubs and wished endlessly that I had just waited until he was better and gone with a verbal well-wishing instead. But, as you can expect, I was completely wrong. It turns out he was absolutely delighted that someone had thought of him and very much appreciated (and enjoyed) the fruits of my labor. That was it. Eventually the bright red Dutch oven showed back up on my doorstep, he thanked me the next time he saw me while out walking his dog, and we continued being friendly neighbors.

But that anxiety still grips me when I feel God prompting me to act on His behalf in some way. That fear wins out over taking action time after time.

What does God’s word say about fear?

Let’s take a look at a few verses then we’ll talk about them. Because, of course, reading and doing are two very different things.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

2 Timothy 1:7, NLT

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
    Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.
    I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

Isaiah 41:10, NLT

Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.

Psalm 27:3, NLT

¹⁵ All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. ¹⁶ We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.

God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. ¹⁷ And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

¹⁸ Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. ¹⁹ We love each other^[b] because he loved us first.

1 John 4:15-19, NLT

Fear is going to happen. It’s part of life. It’s how we’re wired. Fear is, in part, how our bodies have survived and kept us safe as civilization has evolved. Fear is natural and, sometimes, beneficial. But in the world we live in, we are privileged to have fewer physical threats to worry about than our nervous systems would like us to believe. My therapist has me ask myself, “Is this a real threat?” when my body starts lying to me that something requires me to hyperventilate to get through it. While the answer has been “yes” a few times (when your husband has multiple forms of cancer and his latest MRI comes back with notes saying something might be growing back, that’s a real threat!), most often it’s a resounding “no.” That’s been helpful for me: helping my body learn to differentiate between real and perceived threats.

But what about when the answer is, “yes, this is a real threat and I am in danger”? Or what about when telling your body the threat is perceived doesn’t change its reaction?

True peace and rest can only come from the Father. We know this – it’s one of those “oh, duh, of course” things that can become a meaningless platitude unless you really sit with it, allow it to marinate, and do something about it.

²⁸ Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30, NLT

In case you’re like me and having clear-cut action steps is helpful, here are a few things you can do (in the order I try to do them).

1. Take some deep breaths. Breathwork is powerful and God’s been prodding me to work more on it lately. My personal favorite way to do this is to breathe in through your nose for a count of 4, hold your breath for 4, then blow out through your mouth for 8. I’ve been experimenting lately with two-line prayers: I recite one mentally on the inhale and one on the exhale. Take a few 4-4-8 breaths until your body feels a bit more calm. I start with two breaths and go from there.
2. Connect with God however you do best. For me that’s with my journal and bible while surrounded by nature (which, until we move to our new house, is my teeny-tiny condo patio). This is easiest without tiny voices piping up and disturbing the peace, so whether it’s at the crack of dawn or after bedtime, I encourage you to carve out a few minutes of just-you-and-God time.
3. Write down what you hear. Whether that’s a passage that really speaks to you or you engage in listening prayer, record it along with your thoughts / response. Open a voice memo on your phone and talk it through. Write it in a journal or on whatever scrap of paper is nearby. Type it up in a text to a friend or your notepad app. Just save it somehow.
4. Meditate on it. A pitfall that gets me on the regular is hearing something once, thinking it’s great and oh-so-helpful, then letting it fall right out of my brain. A couple options for this are writing it down on a sticky note and putting it somewhere obvious, setting an alarm on your phone with your reminder in the title, setting aside regular time to go back over your journal, or even doing what I’m doing now: writing and expounding on it for others to read as well.
5. Use anxiety to drive you back to Christ. One of my favorite ways to mess with the enemy is by taking things he’s tried to use to get me away from God and instead allowing them to remind me to turn to God. Whenever that pang happens in your stomach or you find yourself hesitating to follow through on something, take that feeling and use it as a trigger for prayer and meditation. Whip out that post-it. Type out an Instagram story sharing with others. Recite it out loud to yourself within earshot of your kids.

What I’ve found is that these skills are like any other in life: practice is what takes you from bumbling around with the skill level of a baby giraffe to hardly even thinking twice before turning to the Lord. I’m still working on it. Getting that fear and anxiety under control clears the way for me to actually take action on the things God is calling me to. I’m excited to see where it’ll lead for me. Where do you see it taking you?