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.
1 comment:
Second time today I've gotten the fear message... I know, I know... I'm trying to let go and trust Him, but I'm not there yet. Fear of messing things up, letting people down, failure, getting hurt... too much baggage, too little faith, too many questions. Am I on the right path, heading in the right direction, doing what He wants me to do? It is a good thing that He still loves me and doesn't give up on me.
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