Into the Wild: How to Fight Your Fear of God’s Calling

Jerusha: I’m pleased to introduce you to author and adventurer Philip Wilder today! Philip is giving away a print copy of his brand new nonfiction release, Discovering God’s Calling, to one of you. Leave a comment below to enter the giveaway!

By Philip Wilder

I wanted to vomit. My body both shook and sweated as I feverishly penned the words, “I don’t want to move to the Middle East, God.”

I was twenty-one and had yet to travel outside the U.S., and God asked me to move to the Middle East with five people I didn’t know.

I read many stories from other great missionaries like Hudson Taylor, George Müller, and Brother Andrew. I wanted to live a life of adventure like they did. God moved in amazing ways in their lives, and I desired to serve God as faithfully as they had.

None of this stopped fear from clenching my heart with its icy talons. Nor did I know what sort of other trials I’d face as I took those hesitant and shaky steps to follow God.

I got kicked out of my house right before I started raising missionary support. And in my first year in the Middle East, I endured the loneliness season of my life, didn’t see any miracles, and didn’t get to see anyone trust in Christ.

I was no “super Christian.” I was plain old me with all my fears, failures, and doubts. Surely missions work—especially overseas missions work—was for those unwavering-faith Christians who never messed up and never doubted God.

How could God call me?

As I prepared for this move, my life consisted of only three constants: fear, God’s powerful presence, and an unwavering certainty that moving to the Middle East was exactly what God wanted me to do.

There’s only one thing that scared me more than moving to the Middle East: stepping outside of God’s gentle, guiding hand.

If God was calling me, then how could I disobey?

God is the one who gave me an identity when I felt like a nobody in my early teen years.

God’s the one who gave me hope when I trudged through those years of depression and months of suicidal thoughts in Middle School.

While in College, He’s the one who comforted me as things deteriorated in my family and met with me all those lonely nights I cried myself to sleep.

Still, the fear of the unknown and of leaving those I loved most plagued me. So, I pleaded with God to change His mind. In response, God showed me the desperate need of the unreached.

He reminded me that these people in the Middle East have never heard the gospel before. They had no Christian friends to hear it from, no church to seek out, no Bibles to read it for themselves, and no unrestricted internet to search for it.

If I didn’t go, these people could go their entire lives and die before ever getting a single chance to hear the amazing and beautiful gospel story.

How could I deprive them of this?

How could I be so consumed with my own whims and desires in this life to deny them a single chance at receiving eternal life?

How could I let fear keep me from being God’s vessel to the people who needed God most?

If God gave me this true and meaningful life as a gift, how could I not turn around and help others also find this new gift?

Besides, I already saw where fear brought me. I followed fear the first thirteen years of my life, and it kept me from enjoying great times with my family.

The more I followed fear, the more it demanded I give up. When I fed fear, it invaded more aspects of my life until I couldn’t even get out of bed before I felt terror in the back of my mind.

So, I pushed away all the unknowns and anxieties to follow what I knew God called me to do.

That first year living in the Middle East ended up being the hardest year of my life.

But God never left me.

The second year, God brought me to some great friends, accomplished some amazing works, used me to bring one person into a loving relationship with Him, and revealed Himself to me in a way I’d never experienced before.

That second year, God called me to write. Not to merely entertain, but to cast a vision. To expose the need that God showed me. That there are people in this world that have never heard the gospel once nor ever will before they die.

God wants to spend an eternity with those He loves. I know I’ll see my family in heaven, so how could I prioritize being with my family in this life over those unreached people groups?

Despite the fears, despite all I knew I’d be giving up (family, friends, comforts, my home), despite the difficulty, I knew following God was worth it.

Now, in hindsight, I know just how right I was. I can’t imagine how different my life would be now if I had let fear keep me back from this adventurous life that Christ has called me to.

I hope I continue to fight against fear so I can courageously step out into the adventure that awaits in the future.

Has God ever called you to something that scared you? Did God help you conquer that fear and follow Him? Please share!

Photos by Mariam Soliman, Prince David, and Giorgio Parravicini on Unsplash. Original graphics designed by Jerusha Agen.

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Philip Wilder is just your average twenty-six-year-old Arabic-speaking and world-traveling guy who loves adventure. Since leaving the country for the first time at the age of twenty-two, he’s now traveled to over 28 countries and only faced seven near-death experiences.

Philip’s followed God on many amazing daring adventures like skydiving, walking the drug and gang-ridden slums in Uganda, surviving an anti-Christian protest in Asia, running from several stray dogs in the Middle East, accidentally trespassing on a Royal family’s private zoo, sharing the gospel in restricted countries, and befriending ISIS sympathizers. As God’s child, Philip knows God will go before him as he trusts God to open impossible doors and lead him through dangerous endeavors.

Starting at the age of thirteen, Philip’s had a passion for evangelism and writing fiction. From sharing the gospel with his soccer teammates, coworkers, and classmates, to his fellow bus patrons, he simply couldn’t stop. Shortly after graduating from the University of Colorado, Denver with a degree in Elementary Education, God whisked him off on a grand adventure to the Middle East to be a missionary there for two years. While there, his passion for writing fiction novels grew along with his heart for the unreached people groups around the world.

Philip came on staff with the Great Commission Alliance in 2018 to join all three of these passions (Evangelism, fiction, and reaching the unreached) together. Now he writes fiction and nonfiction to inspire believers to follow God into the adventure he’s planned by taking wild steps of faith. He hopes that as more believers follow God to reach the lost in their hometowns, more will go to reach unreached people groups around the world who have never heard the gospel before.

Find Philip at his website and connect with him on Facebook and Instagram. You can also join Philip’s adventures (or tell the young men in your life to join) by signing up for his newsletter adventure community here. (Subscribers get the first three chapters of Discovering God’s Calling completely free!)

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Philip is giving away one free print copy of Discovering God’s Calling to one of you! Simply leave a comment below to enter the giveaway. (Giveaway ends August 3, 2020. Winner must have continental U. S. mailing address.)

Discovering God’s Calling

What if God wanted to take you on an amazing adventure like he did Moses, King David, Peter, and Paul? Is it possible God has a specific calling for your life that will satisfy your deepest desires and fill your life with meaning?

It’s true. Without question.

You are irreplaceable. You are essential to the kingdom.

God designed a massive rescue plan for the lost, and the King of the universe has equipped and hand-picked you to play a critical role.

Eternal lives hang in the balance.

Will you join Him?

Life is too short to live in the mundane, and the stakes are too high to not play your crucial part.

So let’s start this exciting journey together.

Through this book, I’ll map out what God has taught me on my crazy adventures around the world and help you discover your unique superpowers (yeah, you’ve got ‘em). By the time you finish this book, you’ll have a battle plan to grab hold of the wonderous life to which God has called you.