I struggle with fear. To some degree, all people struggle with fear. Fear, I believe, is extremely confusing. There are good fears, bad fears, serious fears, trivial fears, adrenaline-induced fears, and outright paralyzing fears. There are fears to work through and fears that ought to be heeded and to be perfectly honest I never know which is which. Lately, I've dealt with a lot of change. Now if I were to say I had a "worst fear" it would be change. Change does not sit well with my heart. Even good change causes my heart to go into a tizzy of worries. What I have learned is that naming my fears really helps me to figure it out. Why? Because before you can name your fears you must get to know them, intimately.
Imagine yourself as a little kid, lying in your dark room, trying to fall back asleep, when you hear a bump in the night. Some small tiny insignificant sound that escapes your attention during the day time, but now it has captured your attention, drawing you in and keeping your ears attentive and straining. Why are you listening so intently? Because you don't know what made that sound. There is literally a physiological thing happening in your body. Because you cannot identify this noise you also cannot assess it's threat level and the alertness in your body, the thudding heart, the fast breathing, the franticly racing mind are all physiological ways for your body to prepare to fight or flee. Psychology aside, you are laying there in this stage of anxiety wondering what made this noise and you have a choice. Choice one: you can pull the blankets above your head and lay wide eyed beneath the covers wondering if some hideous thing is going to touch you at any moment. Choice two: you can slip out from beneath your covers, make a dash for the lamp, and begin to investigate.
Change is my bump in the night. My body is entirely alert. God is saying "so what will it be, you have to make this decision, I will not make it for you." I have the choice to flee from (most of) my change. I could choose not to go to college, choose not to move away. I could pull the covers back over my head then I would spend the rest of my life wondering. I would be in a state of terror wondering when I'd hear the next bump and if this time it would be closer. But something tells me that if I chose this option, there would be no dawn. No hope for relief from the fears that bombard me. That is a very safe option. A very change free option. But it also sounds miserable! So option two, I could turn on the lights and begin to investigate. I could take a risk and dash across the country. It will cost me thousands of dollars, four years, and endless prayers all to see if this change-college thing isn't so bad. Oh there is risk involved. I could discover I hate it. I might decide that college isn't my thing and I want to attend a beauty parlor. But I could also discover I love it and that as hard as it is, I would not trade it for the world. Despite whatever I feel about this change in the end, I have to get to know it, I have to live it, I have to exist intimately within it. After I've done this, I can name that bump and I can return to bed knowing that no hideous monster awaits my inattention. I can find peace within my fear.
God calls us to have no fear. This makes zero sense to me. We are human, we can't not be afraid. But lately God has been revealing something to me. God isn't calling us to magically pop into existence without fear burdening our hearts. He's calling us to name our fears, to live with them in such a personal and intimate way that we cease to fear them, that we may find peace within them. He calls us to live in such a way that we must depend on Him to provide us strength and endurance, to keep us going when our human selves have failed, a way that brings us on our knees before Him. Then He will carry us victoriously to dawn so that we may say "good morning."
It is not easy and more often than not, I mess it up but the hope I have for the morning sustains me and encourages me. One day (not necessarily one day soon but one day) I will have my dawn!
So profound!
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