Fear Begone Part Two

Today I wanted to be around people, but I had no real energy for interacting with anyone most of the day.  I found myself this evening in a semi-melancholy, bordering on depressed, state of mind and couldn't quite put my finger on why.  Since I live only a few blocks from a lively coffee shop, I chose to take my thoughts and some reading there. People interest me, motivate me, and make me think.  I absolutely love watching/studying people.  Because I was so long winded in yesterday's Part One and Background blogs, I needed to gather my sputtering thoughts and develop what it is I'm really trying to say, without letting it take a negative turn.  We are, after all, discussing fears- the deepest darkest ones at that.

By now, if you've read many of my most recent stuff, you know that I've been reading the daily devotionals of Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost for His Highest".  Most days I love him and hate him simultaneously.  The guy doesn't let me get away with anything, which is fine, I suppose.  I do want to be "called out" on my nonsense and to be sharpened, deepened, made wiser, healed.  I guess it's less personal or risky when the one doing the challenging of my deepest thinking has been dead for 95 years.

Anyway, the "love", "be still" and "fear" words were echoed in two of this week's writings. In fact the "perfect love casts out fear" and the "be still and know that I am God" verses were BOTH actually used in them.  At this point, I'll just add that it's a teensy bit creepy that, that keeps happening.  The words were already a woven theme in every other aspect of my life, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that Oswald would join in the fun, or that God make His point a hundred ways in a week- a million in a year- for someone as slow, resistant, prideful, injured and untrusting as I've been.  Two points from this week's readings stand out:

1.  "If what we call love doesn't take us beyond ourselves, it isn't really love.  If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise sensible, shrewd and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning.  This may describe affection... but it is not a true and accurate description of love." (February 21)

2.  "Perseverance...is endurance combined with absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen....it means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling... Perseverance is our supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero is going to be conquered.  Our greatest fear is not that we will be damned, but that somehow Jesus Christ will be defeated. Also, our fear is that the very things our Lord stood for- love, justice, forgiveness, and kindness among men- will not win out in the end..."  (February 22)

Well, thank you Oswald, I couldn't have said it better myself.  Not only do I fear that Jesus may not win out in the end, but I'll take it a step further:  I fear that Jesus will say He loves me, show me a few dozen examples of something that feels like love, get my guard down and then ultimately reject me.  Silly?  Maybe, but if you bear with me, it's not completely unfounded.

There's no way, even if hell did freeze over or pigs did one day sprout wings and fly, I'd tell you the ACTUAL scenario.  Instead, I'll give you the ridiculous example I gave my fake sister-in-law, who joined me late at the coffee shop tonight:

Imagine a timid little girl who's daddy asked her if she wanted dessert.  She said "yes". So her daddy pressed her further, "well what kind of dessert would you like?"  She shyly asks for ice cream.  "Sweetie, be specific, tell me what kind of ice cream you want.  Do you want toppings?"  So the little girl musters up her most heartfelt hopes for her dessert, she's specific with flavor and toppings and includes a request for it to be served in her favorite bowl.  Then, as though the conversation never occurred, the father sends the little girl to her room to sit, quietly, alone, all night.  There's no ice cream, with or without toppings.  There's not even a cookie or a piece of fruit.  In fact, the father doesn't even talk to her for the rest of the night. So sits a timid, confused, little girl alone in the dark- feeling rejection, hopeless, foolish...

If that daddy is like God and God's character is good and kind and loving, then he has gone out to buy the highest quality ice cream and most lavish toppings available.  He has not forgotten her request, and remembers every detail, right down to her favorite bowl. But, if that little girl is like me and she is familiar with lifetime of feelings of rejection, she can't help but be crushed and fearful.

My fake sister-in-law and I agree: In order to put these fears to death, I am going to have to persevere in every sense of the word.  I will have to actively believe in the Jesus of scripture.  It will me require me to replace fearful instinctual thinking with intentional reminders that He is BIG, victorious, true, kind.  I am going to have to shrug off timidity, self protection and selfishness in order to love Him back, to the place of reckless abandonment, like only He deserves.

(Google Image)