218 – How to Live Unafraid with Guest Grace Fox

Write from the Deep

Do you want to know God more intimately and live unafraid? Come join our guest, Grace Fox, as she delves into the many names of God, all with their own meaning and promise. You will find yourself more drawn to Him than ever!

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We’re told in Scripture that God doesn’t give us a spirit of fear, and yet so many of us struggle with that very emotion in our lives. Sometimes even debilitating fear.

Guest Grace Fox is here to share what God has taught her about living unafraid.

About Grace Fox

Grace Fox is a popular speaker at women’s events internationally. She inspires hope, courage, and transformation through God’s word. She has served as a career missionary for more than 30 years. Grace has written 14 books and published hundreds of articles in magazines.

She’s a member of the First Five Bible Study writing team for P 31 Ministries and is a co-host for a podcast called Your Daily Bible Verse.

Her book, Finding Hope in Crisis: Devotions for Calm in Chaos, won the Golden Scroll Devotional Book of the Year Award in 2021. Keeping Hope Alive: Devotions for Strength in the Storm won the same award in 2022.

Her newest devotional is titled Names of God: Living Unafraid. You can learn all about her at GraceFox.com.

Thanks to our sponsors on Patreon, we’re able to offer an edited transcript of the podcast!

Living Unafraid

Erin: Welcome listeners. We are delighted that you’re here with us today. And you might even hear my smile. We have a guest, Grace Fox, and she’s on a boat somewhere in Canada!

Karen Ball: In fact, Grace and her husband have been living on their boat for six years, and they have discovered all kinds of people to share God’s love with. Welcome, Grace.

Grace Fox: Thank you so much for having me. I am excited to be here with you all.

Erin: Of course, we’re going to start by asking you what ‘the deep’ means to you?

Grace Fox: It means going into a hard place, and yet it’s a rich place. It’s a place I might not necessarily choose for myself because it might hurt and I don’t like pain, but it’s often in the hard places, the painful places of life, that we grow the most.

Karen: It’s true. We don’t want to go there. But so often God forces us there, kicking and screaming. Whenever Erin and I meet together, we read from a devotional called Streams in the Desert.

What I most appreciate about that devotional is it addresses the fact that, by following Christ, we are members of the fellowship of suffering. Living the Christian life is not easy, but we have an almighty God and Savior who help us to get through it.

Know God Better

Grace Fox: And maybe the deep shouldn’t be a place we dread or think of it as a frightening place to be. Maybe we should start thinking of it more as a place of invitation, where God says, “Come with me. You wanna know Me better? Let’s go to the deep.”

Erin: Both are true. It’s hard and it’s great. So, Grace, we mentioned in our intro that you have a new devotional release about living unafraid. What compelled you to focus on the names of God as a means to overcome fear?

Grace Fox: Back during Covid days, I thought about women being in isolation just like I was. And it occurred to me that maybe they were hungry to fellowship with other women, like I was.

Many years prior I wrote a book called Moving From Fear to Freedom, A Woman’s Guide to Peace in every Situation. And then I had done a Bible study to go with that.

So pulled that out and put it out there, asking women if they’d like to do the study with me on Zoom.

Eighty women said yes! I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t know how to do small groups on Zoom. But a woman who had signed up contacted me and she said, “Grace, do you need help with the technological part of this?” And I said, “Absolutely!”

So off we went with a seven- or eight-week study. And as it came to an end, the ladies were asking what we were going to do next? And I went, “I don’t know. What are we gonna do next?”

What’s Next?

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. But in my own quiet time reading, the names of God just kept coming up. Not any particular names of God, but the words “name of God” or “God’s name.” Such as “in God’s holy name,” or “We will praise God’s name.”

And I kept thinking, what’s the deal? It just kept coming around. Finally I realized God was trying to get my attention. And so I offered that––to study God’s names together. I wrote the curriculum as we went, week by week.

It was a massive undertaking, but I learned so much and saw how there is tons of material to explore.

When I met my managing editor around that time, she asked me for other book ideas. I pulled up my laptop and went through a list of what I’d been studying.

She listened and when I said, “What about a book on the names of God?” She said, “Yes, Let’s do that.” So that’s how this was born.

A Devotional Study

It’s actually a devotional study. It’s seven chapters, written in a devotional style, with stories and biblical teaching and a prayer and questions at the end of each chapter. It’s a Bible study for groups or individuals.

I envision somebody sitting across the table having coffee with a friend and doing this, maybe one-on-one as a discipleship tool. And then there’s a QR code at the end of each chapter where you just point your camera and up will come a fifteen-minute video teaching.

Karen: How fun!

Why Study the Names of God?

Grace Fox: I’ve learned so much about the names of God and how understanding each one can change our lives. Because understanding God’s character frees us to live unafraid.

Erin: I really like the notion of studying God’s names, because God’s name is who He is, but it’s also what He does. And if we connect those things better we can apply who He is to our situation, and understand how who He is affects who we are and what we need. So I love how it’s all woven together.

Grace Fox: Years and years ago, my husband and I were missionaries back in Nepal. Our son was born there, and then on our second child was born, but she had hydrocephalus––too much water on the brain.

The doctors told us we had to take her back to North America on the first flight available for a surgery to save her life. Well, back then there weren’t a lot of international flights. Maybe one every three days or so.

Then, when the airline found out I had had a C-section to deliver this baby, they refused to take me because I was a medical high risk. They didn’t want me, or my less-than-two-week-old baby on their plane. But my husband and the doctors said our little girl would die if she didn’t get back.

So my husband wrapped our daughter in a big blanket, and took one bottle of breast milk and a diaper bag. That’s all he had. He left, but I had to stay behind for another eight days.

“What do You want me to Learn?”

Sitting on that bed, after saying good-bye to my newborn daughter, not knowing if I would see her alive again or not, I cried out to God, asking what He wanted me to learn.

Well, one week prior, we’d interviewed with a career mission agency to stay in Nepal for the rest of our lives. And now…that was not gonna happen. And it was that fast that everything changed.

In that very, very dark moment, the lyrics of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” came to mind. And I got to where I could kind of sing along. Not with my whole heart and mind, but I was hanging on for dear life to God’s faithfulness

I wondered what was going to happen to our family. We were going back to North America with no job, no car, no house. We didn’t even have a health insurance for a North American hospital, and we were gonna have a baby in the NICU ward!

The AHA! Moment

That was the life-changing aha! moment for me, a young woman in my mid-twenties. I either had to believe those lyrics, that God is faithful, or not. And if they weren’t true, then we were in serious trouble.

But if they were true, then everything would be okay. It didn’t mean our daughter would live. It didn’t promise me that she would have a good quality of life. But God would be faithful to see us through, no matter what. And I hung onto that.

Since then, I’ve believed with all my heart that our understanding of who God is, well, that’s the most important understanding we can have. Which means we have to ensure that understanding is based not on our feelings, not on our circumstances, not on what somebody else says, but on truth.

And that’s what gets us through those hard and deep places.

Erin: Exactly. What do we have if not that truth? We have nothing. So, let’s talk about the process of writing and studying all of these things. What kind of affect did that have on your own spiritual journey as a writer?

Yahweh Rohi: The Lord is my shepherd

Grace Fox: This book has seven of God’s names, but there are so many more. When I thought about Yahweh Rohi, The Lord is my Shepherd, I realized that every time I write a book, I go into it with a great deal of fear. I think it’s fear of failure, like, Oh no, I landed a contract! What if I fail?

That’s when I remember Yahweh Rohi, The Lord is my Shepherd. I have all I need. My Shepherd will give me what I need to do this job.

I will trust Him to lead me to the right research and the right resources. I might have somebody who I think will be a good interview for a particular chapter, but inevitably Yahweh Rohi flips it upside down and brings in somebody else whose story is a better fit.

What’s more, I have to be open to that––to follow His guidance as my Shepherd, to follow His lead and to know that He’s not gonna lead me down some path with a dead end.

He’s going to lead me down the right path to this pasture that is green and it’s gonna feed not only my soul as I write it, but it’s also gonna feed the souls of the readers.

What If I Fail?

Karen: There’s the perfect answer to that question, “What if I fail?” Yahweh Rohi. The Lord is my Shepherd. I can’t fail. He has called me and guided me to write this. I don’t need to worry about failing. I just need to pay attention and to listen.

Grace Fox: Exactly. I mean, think about the cast sheep. That’s the sheep that just flips over on its back and it can’t get up. So it’s in a very vulnerable position.

Sometimes a sheep like that will lie there and kick and flounder and cry out, bleating for the shepherd’s help. Unless the shepherd comes to help, the cast sheep will die.

As a writer, I’ve been that sheep in that cast position. Several years ago I had such high hopes for one book that I’d written. I thought it was going to come out of the gate and be a bestseller and I’d be set for life and all that, yada yada. But it didn’t happen. Not at all.

Two years into it, my agent had to release some clients because of her life and needs at that point. And I was one of those she said good-bye to. Well, that broke my heart. Then I heard that this book that I had all the high hopes for was going to be remaindered. And I thought, Oh, all that work for nothing!

“Is This The End of My Career?”

I went into a pit. I was the sheep on my back, lying there with its legs floundering and crying, “Oh God, I don’t get it. I had better hopes for this.” One day, I even thought, Maybe I’m done writing, maybe this is it. This is the end.

I cried out again to my Shepherd. “God, you gotta help me here. Would You show me if I’m done? Because if I’m done writing, I’m okay with that. If I’m not, then You need to tell me, because I’m okay with persevering too, but I just wanna know so I’m not wasting my energy anymore.”

Keep Writing!

Five hours later––five hours––my phone rang and it was a woman I didn’t even know. She said, “Grace, for some reason I feel compelled to call you. I’ve never called an author before, but today I can’t get this out of my head. I need to tell you that your book, Moving from Fear to Freedom, changed my life.

“I also feel compelled to tell you this, for whatever this is about, so just take it or leave it. I feel compelled to say, please keep writing.”

I burst into tears. I told her why I was crying, what I had prayed five hours before. And then she started crying and said, “I heard the spirit.”

“You not only heard him, but you did something about it.”

She was afraid what I would think of her if she just called me. But she did it anyway. Wow. And I needed the words she spoke. It was my most amazing God moment ever as a writer.

That was 10 or 12 years ago, and I’ve never looked back. I’ve grown weary, but I’ll never again think it’s over. Not until God makes it that clear that it’s done.

Are You Done?

Karen: Over the years, I’ve had authors come to me and ask if I think they’re finished writing. My first response is to ask who gave him or her the task to write in the first place? If their answer is God, then I ask if He’s set them free from that task. The answer is usually no, or the reasons they think they’re done.

But I ask again if God has set them free. More often than not, the answer is no. “Then you’re not done.”

I understand the frustration and weariness, but God doesn’t call us to be bestselling authors. He calls us to write His words and truth for whomever will read it and be blessed by it.

Grace Fox: Yep. So there might be a writer out there listening to this who feels like that little cast sheep and to that dear writer, I would say just call out to the Shepherd and He will come. He will come and put you back on your feet.

Part of a shepherd’s job is to massage the sheep to get that circulation going until that sheep is able to run again. Jesus, our Shepherd, our Yahweh Rohi, knows what we writers need to get back on our feet so that we can run again.

Understand the Shepherd Aspect of God

Erin: Amen. How kind and gentle and loving He is to give us what we need in those moments. Like the shepherd rubbing and massaging the sheep, when Jesus was here, walking on Earth, He was going places, meeting people, touching the leper…

We would have less fear if we understood that Shepherd aspect of Jesus more deeply, that he is going to take care of us. My favorite thing about the shepherd is the place of rest. My Shepherd leads me beside quiet waters and makes me lie down in green pastures.

It’s such a picture of calm.

Publishing is difficult and can be stressful and fraught with problems, but if we’re doing it with God, it’s also a place of rest. And if we would hang on to that, it would make such a difference. And that’s just one of the names you cover!

Yahweh: I Am Who I Am

Karen: Another name that you explore is just Yahweh, and the meaning you give is I Am Who I Am. Who else can say that but God? I Am Who I Am. You know, we spend so much time trying to “find” ourselves. God never has to do that. He knows who He is.

So when I pray, if I’m feeling uncertain, I can go to the I Am, Who is the biggest and the best and the most powerful of anyone who has ever existed. And I can rest in Him and in the promise that nothing is going to change Him. He is God.

Yahweh Tzevaot: the Lord of Hosts

Erin: Yeah, that’s very cool. Another name that I really liked was Yahweh Tzevaot. I might not pronounce it right, but it means the Lord of Hosts. Can you talk about that one just a little bit?

Grace Fox: You did well pronouncing that name. That is the name that comes to mind when we think about David fighting Goliath, when David says, “You come to me with with your javelin and with all your armor, but I come to you in the name of the Lord, my God.”

The Israelite army turned around and ran from Goliath’s taunts. The entire army. Twice a day for 40 days, whenever Goliath came out and taunted them.

When David, this little teenage shepherd boy showed up, he says, “What’s the problem here?”

What’s the problem? Goliath is defying the army of the living God, and that’s a problem! So David picks up his five little smooth stones and takes Goliath out with a slingshot!

Fight In Yahweh Tzevaot’s Name!

David really got it. He fought that battle in the name of the Lord of hosts, the Lord of heaven’s armies.

If you’re looking at all the challenges with marketing or writing a book, or maybe you’re a newer writer trying to break into publishing, and it feels like a Goliath before you. But if God has called us to do this, then do it in the name of the Lord of hosts!

He goes before us. He’s the one who gives us courage. He’s the one who fights on our behalf. We don’t do this alone.

Karen: When we come to challenges, we need to see through the eyes of eternity, not the eyes of this temporal world.

If you look at where the world is today, it’s easy to be discouraged and to feel as though everything’s out of control. There’s so much hatred and so much violence, and yet if we turn our gaze to God and we see Him in all of these names and that He does, we don’t need to be afraid.

We don’t need to despair. We know that God is all knowing. We know that God is ever present. We know that in all of his names and in all of the things that He does, He is working for our best. He is working to make us into clearer reflections of His son.

So, Grace, as we draw our time to a close, do you have any final words of wisdom for our listeners?

El Elon: God is a Creator

Grace Fox: I would just sign off using the name El Elyon. And that one is God is a Creator, Almighty God. Because he is a creator, he owns it all. So it’s his right to do with it what he wants, right?

And that’s true about our writing career, our endeavors. That’s true about our lives. When we belong to Him, He owns us. He bought us with the blood of Jesus Christ. We need to surrender to that, to be good with that and learn to rest in that.

Also that name denotes the fact that He is the boss, therefore He always has the final say. When we as writers look at what’s before us, look at our dreams, look at our endeavors or whatever, always remember He decides the outcome.

So we can strive and strive and strive, but He gets the final say. And don’t compare with other people’s journey, but rest in contentment knowing that He’s got us. He’s our Shepherd. He holds us close to His heart and He will have the final say.

Karen: Amen!

Erin: Amen to that.

Book mentioned in the podcast

Names of God: Living Unafraid by Grace Fox

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I cried out to God, asking what He wanted me to learn. #amwriting #Christianwriter
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The post 218 – How to Live Unafraid with Guest Grace Fox appeared first on Write from the Deep.