As I left a 3 hour lunch today with my friend Lisa, that followed a 2 and 1/2 hour morning coffee with my friend Pat this past Saturday morning, I was struck by something. A word that came up many times in both conversations.
I should have counted how many times I both heard and uttered the word 'fear' in those two days.
Not always in a bad way, sometimes it was in the context of "fearing the Lord". But it dawned on me how much we had talked about how we see fear running rampant in the Christian life, in particular in women's lives. Fear seems to be gripping so many around us. Fear that manifests itself in so many ways - in insecurities of all shapes and sizes, in jealousy, in depression, in anger, in an eating disorder, in cutting, in bad relationships, in choices to leave marriages, in numbness and complacency, and the list could go on. The roots of fear can run deep and lead to so much devastation. Fear.
What dawned on me as I drove home is how we talked about when those types of fears started for us, and for those we know who are even now paralyzed by them. As early as elementary and middle school. WOW! Realizing just how long we have been living with the fear and insecurities, believing the lies that fear allows to creep in, was astounding to us.
The lives that are now held captive by fears have been so in some cases for 20, 30, 40, and 50 years.
Lord, if I could go back and speak truth into 'younger me' I would try to make me understand that I will never find anyone who loves me like God designed me to be loved by Him. That I will never be like the girl standing next to me and that's actually a good thing because I want my blessings, my journey - not hers. That no matter what a boy does to me I am worthy. That no matter what choices I make I can be forgiven. That I don't have to worry about even making a bad choice if I never put what others want me to be ahead of what God wants me to be. And that to care that much about what others think only succeeds in handing them the kind of power over me that only God should have.
I want to always fearfully love my Lord, but never want again to fear who I am, what He wants, is doing, isn't doing, or what He wants to make from my life.
Psalm 139:13-14
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
Something so precious has nothing to fear
Romans 8:31
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Lord, God, may my fears never again overide my purpose in you!
1 comment:
Could it be that 'fear' has some results that may actually be good for us? For example, Jonah seemed to have little fear of God and God's judgment upon Ninevah and in the end cursed the gourd. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, and fear leads us to the altar of forgiveness and salvation 'fearing' the wrath of God and hell itself. Fear came upon all that beheld angels sent from God, requiring in some cases a 'touch' or a word of strength to stand. The children in whom is no fear are called the generation of judgment as 'pride' had beset their hearts and minds. Had Adam/Eve had fear would they have disobeyed? The mercy of God is on them that fear Him from generation to generation, perhaps this is why we have a fear, respectfully so, of God. These are all a different type of fear, granted, but in the teaching of the love of God (not that there is anything wrong with that, my best Seinfield approach) we may have displaced a generation in whom there is not fear. Fear God and live. Now that established the Christian response is exactly as you and the 620 crew described today, that we whom are in Christ receive the title, "Well done, my good and faithful servant" and why, because this the commendation was given unto the Son as "In whom I am well pleased" and the Son loves the Father and the Father the Son, and the Son's Bride is the church, so both the Father and the Son love the Bride, the church. And while we desire 'perfect love' which casts out all fear, we know that while we are at home in these bodies we are incomplete being completed in the soul of the salvation of Christ, nonetheless, when Christ shall appear we shall be like Him, then our love will have been perfected not in our desire for 'we' but in the desire of Him/Christ whose desire it is to perfect His Bride, for she is made white in His love and sacrifice for the Bride. Now the sum of all this is, 'Would you like to be friends?", I am 'themousecried'.
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