Fear. This is a tough one. This is one I have wrestled with more this past year or so than ever in my life. I can't quite figure out when or why or how but I now have moments of crippling fear that are usually complete nonsense. I know it stems from living in Pemba and I am fairly certain it is from nothing concrete, but something spiritual. It probably has to do with something like this:
- Ephesians 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
When I was assaulted, my first reaction was not fear, but to retaliate and attack. I ran after him with plans to jump on his back, claw his eyes out and bring him down. There was no fear. Until later, after watching him being beaten, not trusting the police, standing so isolated in a vacant field, my belongings scattered in the dirt under a boabab tree. That was when I realized I was completely helpless in the natural with no one there I could trust and everyone around me against me and that was when I prayed. It was later as I watched my attacker empty his pockets of amulets and condoms that I realized just how mightily my Father had saved me in that moment.
When I was a child I used to go with my dad to repair the Ham Radio repeater on top of the fire tower in the Airline community of Hart County. I shimmied up there right behind him. The steps into the tower room were too far apart for my short legs so I would wait at the very top, swaying gently. I would sit and look over the fields and the blue mountains in the distance and enjoy the view. A few years ago I attempted to join friends in climbing a similar tower at a hunting lodge. I made it up three levels before my knees began to quiver noticeably and my legs simply wouldn't climb. I wanted to go to the top but my body would not let me. I had to laugh at this silly fear that had suddenly crept in somewhere between 9 and 32. So odd. So silly. When did I develop a fear of heights?
Fear. It can be completely irrational or incredibly tangible. But Romans 8 says:
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. and
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Fear doesn't always surface in the big moments of snakes and rats and captors and creaky high towers. It sneaks in the back door too. I fear the unknown. I fear running out of money. I fear what others think. In the book The Artisan Soul, Erwin McManus writes, "We live in fear of failure, convinced that failure will prove us to be frauds. We have bought into a lie that creative people never fail and hence failure is proof that we are not creative. So we get back in line, our dreams in check, and condemn our souls to a slow and painful death. Fear is the shadow of creativity. When we choose to create, we bring light to our fears. The darkness does not prevail over us. The creative act is inherently an act of courage. We are born to far too many fears and far too great a darkness. It is only when we find the courage to create that we are freed from those fears and that darkness."
Fear is so crippling that it can rob us of who we are created to be. Fear can rob us of who we were destined to be and our purposes here on earth. Our creativity and self expression and how we relate to and touch the lives of other can be impacted by fear. But He doesn't call us cowards. He calls us conquerors! We can overcome them all. I have no desire to climb a fire tower but I refuse to let fear prohibit me from being who I was created to be. I cannot let fear of lack or fear of man and his opinions rob me of my destiny.
So today I am calling myself out on my silly fears of the unknown, of running out of resources (of which He is in endless supply) and fear of the opinions of others. I am burying them in the same place I put my guilt yesterday. Thank You for the cross, that wondrous cross and for sending Your Son. Who stands right with me wherever I go, roaring like a lion in the face of my captors. He is constantly by your side. He is always cheering you on. He is full of all the courage you will ever need. Lean on Him.
Vamos conquistar o mundo!
-Grace
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