Written by Michelle Newstead
“I truly believe God’s heart for us is to experience His love and live in His freedom.”
Sometimes that’s easier said than done. Rather than live in the truth, I doubt it’s for me. It seems too good to be true that I don’t need to do anything to earn that love. There’s something in me that strives for acceptance, that feels that I must do things to be accepted, that the only way to get it right in life is to do what I think others would want me to do.
So, why should what seemed like a simple statement about God’s heart for us in a recent Faithwalking coaching session cause such a deep emotional reaction in me? And why would subsequently being asked “What do you need?” stop me in my tracks?
That question really got me thinking. What do I need? I’ve always struggled with being able to verbalise what I need, or even admitting that I have needs.
As I sat with the feelings and questions about why I couldn’t ask for what I needed, I realised there’s a lie I’ve believed since I was a child that I’m not good enough, and that to be enough I needed to make people happy ‒ and in particular, my mum. I always felt I was responsible for making her happy, to comfort her when she was sad, to be the one she could lean on. All of this was too much for me, especially as a child, and I felt I had failed. I had failed in my relationship with my mum, and in my head I was a bad daughter.
We can so easily be caught up in the lies we believe; it’s like they are on repeat. We try so hard to avoid them, but they still whisper. The lie that I was a bad daughter seemed to encompass so many other lies around me about being less than, not enough, needy.
Having needs of my own is a big thing to admit to, and something I knew I had to process and start to move beyond. The only way to do that was to ask for something I needed. I needed truth, I needed God’s perspective, and I needed someone to pray for me.
I took the brave step to message a friend and ask for prayer. As she prayed for me, I renounced the lies that I’m not enough and that I was a bad daughter. And then the truth ‒ a whisper from my heavenly Father that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, perfect in His eyes. I am His beloved daughter.
I cried. I sobbed. The lie has been replaced with truth ‒ all because of a question asked in a coaching session.
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Why Faithwalking?
We believe that God’s intended design is for wholeness in individuals, communities, and the world. We believe that God’s hope is for shalom to be present, which includes peace, unity, completeness, wholeness, and well-being for everyone and in everyone. God’s hope is for the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.
We live in a world of brokenness: People are chronically anxious and reactive, internally conflicted, frequently unloving, and regularly unconcerned about the common good. Many Christians are inconsistent in following the way of Jesus.
Our Mission
To make wholeness possible for individuals, communities, and the world.
We do this through a process of spiritual formation where people are equipped with tools to gain freedom from wounds of their past, grow in emotional maturity, and live lives of purpose on mission with God, so that they increasingly follow the way of Jesus by serving the poor, the marginalized, and those in need, working for the common good, and restoring individuals, social systems, communities, and nations to God’s intended design.
Our Vision
Our vision is for Faithwalking to be accessible to every person in the world so that participants become agents of wholeness in their own context.
