The Biblical Case For Doing The Thing That Terrifies You

Whether it's the hard conversation you keep avoiding, the career pivot that terrifies you, or the leadership role no one else is stepping into, that voice in your head telling you you're not the right person for this is as old as Scripture itself. It turns out, even Moses heard it.

In her new book Nothing Is Impossible with God, Fox News anchor Shannon Bream walks through eleven biblical figures who were wildly underqualified for the assignments God gave them, and how their stories speak directly to the self-doubt, fear, and paralysis so many women carry today. The Moses chapter, excerpted below, is the one that stopped us in our tracks.

Bream doesn't write like a theologian. She writes like a woman who's stood at a podium with shaking hands and knows exactly what it costs to show up anyway.

MOSES'S SOCIAL ANXIETY

Speaking Up When You're Alone

Exodus 1–14

I have a test for most audiences when I show up to speak. I've got a couple of self-deprecating jokes right off the top. If I don't get even a polite chuckle, I know it's going to be a rough thirty minutes and I better cut the corny stuff and stick to more serious content.

But because I know what it's like to be up front, I am careful to be a good audience member! When I'm on the other side of the equation, sitting in the audience, I probably look a little wacky because I'm smiling and nodding and cheering on that speaker like nobody's business! Finding just one friendly face can feel like a lifeline. If we can find the mental or emotional assurance that our message isn't bombing, we will discover that the physical reaction to the anxiety is much more manageable.

What strikes fear in your heart? Makes you go weak in the knees or even feel faint? What keeps you up at night and distracts you from the joy in life? There are endless surveys about what truly scares Americans—from terror attacks to economic collapse. Some of these issues shift and cycle over time, but you know what remains consistently on the list? Public speaking. Research shows a literal physical manifestation of panic for most people when they think about walking into the spotlight on stage or in a boardroom: excess sweating, shaking, elevated heart rate, or nausea. Maybe you've had a combo!

The reason for this is more than just a fear of speaking poorly. It has to do with the anxiety over how you're being perceived, of being vulnerable and exposed to a crowd. It has everything to do with our social confidence.

So imagine starting from that place of sheer terror of public speaking, then having one of the most epic showdowns with one of the most powerful men in the world, and winding up as the spokesman for a nation of millions. It happened to Moses. You might think God would pick a man who'd eagerly jump at the chance to be one of the greatest communicators of all time, who had no fear of social rejection at all. But Moses was just the opposite. The first thing he did in the book of Exodus was resolve an argument with deadly violence. How could this man possibly become the great lawgiver and mediator?

Slave to Prince

His story starts with a bold, brave mother—who defied the law of the day that required all Hebrew male babies to be thrown into the Nile River—a certain death. It was a horrific scheme cooked up by Pharaoh, who had become alarmed at the rate of growth of the Hebrew people in Egypt. Centuries before, Joseph had been divinely positioned to save his people when famine drove them to Egypt looking for help. Had Joseph's jealous, scheming brothers not sold him into slavery, he would never have risen to the highest echelons of power in Egypt and been in a position to help them, after years of unjust punishment and suffering. (There's much more on Joseph's story in the pages ahead.) It's hard to imagine a more perfect illustration of Romans 8:28 than Joseph's roller coaster of a life's journey.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Joseph was a man of integrity, a faithful servant to a different Pharaoh hundreds of years before Moses arrived on the scene. During those intervening centuries, the people of Israel had flourished, despite their oppression—and Egyptian leaders had become concerned. That led to the barbaric plan to wipe out their future generations by murdering defenseless infants.

If you were an impartial observer who dropped into Joseph or Moses's stories in their early phases, you likely would not have believed who they would eventually become. Joseph had to become a slave to become a prince. Moses started as a prince but became a political refugee on the run. At first blush, their stories might seem full of unnecessary suffering, but in fact, God often forges strength in His servants by putting them through the crucible of weakness. That's exactly what would happen with Moses, whose life in many ways paralleled that of Joseph, but not in the way he might have expected.

By the time Moses showed up, the centuries had eroded the respect and admiration the Egyptians once had for Joseph, his extended family—and their God. The Israelites had multiplied to such an extent that Pharaoh no longer saw them as a blessing but as a threat.

Neither the Hebrew midwives nor Moses's own mother, Jochebed, complied with the edict to kill the male babies. Instead, Jochebed hid baby Moses for three months, then she crafted a small, waterproof basket, put Moses in it, and placed it among the reeds in the Nile under the careful watch of his older sister, Miriam (Exodus 2:2–4). Miriam watched as Pharaoh's daughter found the basket and had compassion on her brother, then Miriam offered to "get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby" (Exodus 2:7). Miriam went straight back to her mom, who happily nursed her own baby Moses for a time and then had him delivered to the palace to become the Pharaoh's daughter's son.

If you know his story, you know that Moses still very much had a connection to the enslaved Hebrew people in Egypt, despite his royal upbringing. It was when he witnessed one of them being abused that Moses made a decision that changed everything.

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

Exodus 2:11–12

One of his own people. Moses never lost that link, and in his mind, his kinship meant he should fight on behalf of his people. Moses clearly wanted his deed to remain a secret, but the rumor spread about what he had done.

The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?"

The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known."

When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh . . .

Exodus 2:13–15

Moses spent decades running from the fallout of this event. Long before the Israelites spent forty years lost and wandering in the wilderness, Moses had his own period of isolation and drifting.

Prince to Fugitive

Happily for Moses, his efforts to defend others from injustice weren't rejected by everyone. After he saved a group of women from rival shepherds in the desert, Moses settled among the women's people, the Midianites. They did share some heritage as fellow descendants of Abraham, but they were not from the line of Sarah and Abraham. The Midianites came through Abraham's wife, Keturah, after the death of Sarah (Genesis 25:1–2). Moses married the daughter of Jethro, a Midianite priest. Far from the comforts of the Egyptian palace, he tended to flocks and built a family in the desert.

This seems to be Moses's first step in fully identifying with the Hebrew people, who were, traditionally, shepherds. When he arrived in Midian, the women he rescued identified him as an "Egyptian" (Exodus 2:19). But he began to reject the habits of Egypt, even as he had already rejected Pharaoh's unjust rule. If the customs in Egypt were still the same as they were in Joseph's day, shepherding was seen as a "detestable" occupation (Genesis 46:34), so it would have been doubly humbling for Moses to accept such a job. All the while, the Israelites continued to suffer in bondage in Egypt. But God was listening and positioning His servant, Moses, to act.

During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

Exodus 2:23–25

All throughout the Bible, we watch as God sends "saviors" to His people. They were all temporary victors; none of them was able to deliver full redemption—until the arrival of Jesus Christ, His Son. In many of these stories in the Old Testament, we see an infinite God calling on the flawed and frightened to partner with Him to accomplish the (humanly) impossible. Sometimes they were intimidated by people and circumstances beyond their control. Sometimes it was the person in the mirror who presented the biggest challenge. I don't know any adult who hasn't struggled with self-doubt at some point. The question is how we deal with it in light of a call from our heavenly Father.

The Burning Bush

When the Lord showed up unexpectedly one day, Moses was doing what he'd done for decades. God's appearance in the mundane demonstrates there is meaning in the work we do every day, whether...

Shannon Bream's Nothing Is Impossible with God is available now. Order it on Amazon.

Excerpted from Nothing is Impossible with God: Eleven Heroes. One God. Endless Lessons in Overcoming by Shannon Bream. Copyright 2026 by Fox News Networks LLC. Published with permission from Fox News Books and HarperCollins Publishers.