He Loves Me He Loves Me Not: Fear Part Two

Every one of us can name our fears. We know what scares us. I am afraid of disappointing people, of letting others down. Some of us are afraid of getting sick. Some of us are haunted by being alone. Some of us have nightmares of finding out the truth so we live a lie. We are afraid of death. We are afraid of living. From a religious perspective we are afraid of displeasing God. We are afraid of failure. We are afraid of being made a fool. We are afraid of losing all we have worked so hard to get. We are afraid we have not done enough. Afraid of being found out that I am not who I really say I am.
One time I went to a church to preach. I had never been there so no one knew me. I walked around talking to the folks introducing myself only by my first name. I sat down beside this one woman. Introduced myself and we talked. She poured out her life story. She talked about how sorry her husband was, how rebellious her children were, and how boring she found her job. Later in the evening, the minister introduced me and the woman felt embarrassed that she had just told her miserable existence to the preacher. Here she was a leader in the church thinking she is telling this to some visitor and it turns out to be the guest preacher. When you are the “guest preacher” or “preacher” in general it changes the dynamics. Because this person represents God we cannot be real. We must put on a front, be something that we are really not, we must act as though I have it together and that nothing in life scares me. When we do this and we all do, it reveals more about our understanding of God than most of us realize. We believe that God cannot handle the real me. We are afraid of what God may think. The underlining truth about fear is that fear is the belief that God is unable or unwilling. When we fear something or someone we are stating that God is unable to handle the situation or the person. We cannot love what we fear. As long as fear remains in our lives we will never love life or others the way God intended.

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: Fear

Most of us go through life plucking petals from daisies. With every situation we ask ourselves does God love me or have I done something to disapprove of his love. We don’t do it intentionally because we have been taught that God’s love is infinite and never changing but yet we cannot help to react this way because we find this is how life works. We have discovered what pleases people and we either do it so we can be loved or we do not do it so we can get the attention we may be lacking. We grew up knowing what pleased our parents and if we wanted to go to a friend’s house on the weekend we did what pleased our parents. We know what pleases the boss and to get a pay check we do it. We get a reaction from our parents as a child that we didn’t expect and we say, “Do they love me?” We get a reaction from our spouse and we ask the same thing. We go through life playing this game: He loves me. He loves me not.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve have sinned by disobeying God’s command. When God seeks them out for their daily walk we find them hiding. The bible gives the reason for their hiding – they are afraid. And we have been afraid ever since. Afraid of God and of life.

I grew up on a dirt road and you know what people do on dirt roads? They dump their unwanted pets on dirt roads. We would always come across an abandoned cat or dog. We took in a few dogs. Remember me saying, “We cannot love what we fear.” Well that was the relationship I had with cats. I didn’t fully trust a cat so, well you know. A dog though, especially a puppy, I would feel sorry for. Have you ever tried to win the trust of an abandoned puppy? A puppy that was malnourished, abused, and abandoned. You get down eye level with it. So it can see you. The puppy tries to decide whether I’m safe or not. She makes a few steps forward, then thinks better and turns her head away as if to break the spell about to overcome her. On those occasions I would love to rush in, scoop her off her feet and convince her how safe she is, but if I so much as lean forward , she runs off further into the darkness. This little puppy has no idea what awaits her if she can overcome her fear.

In John 14: 2- 3, Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” When we read this passage we normally think of what? Heaven. But Jesus is still talking about his first coming – his death on the cross; and his second coming back – the resurrection. The cross stands as the event that opens the door for us to dwell in God’s love. Like David, Jesus is saying, “we can live constantly in God’s presence.” To be in the place that Jesus speaks of is not necessarily a place, heaven is a place we will one day experience, but it is a reality. It is a life without fear, a life of trust.

The puppy just outside my reach has no idea what awaits her is she can overcome her fear. All the food, love, nurture, and assurance of life that she needs I can offer if she can just turn her focus from her fear. The same holds true for us. We can fear less and trust more by focusing on God’s love for us – a love that is unchanging.

God's Strength

When you consider God's strength, is it mighty enough? That is like asking if you are being robbed in a dark alley who would you want to show up Barney Fife or Walker Texas Ranger?

Who shall I fear? We can trust because God is mighty?