I fear God, dear Abner, and have no other fear.
~ Jean Racine
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us.
~ from The Beloved Disciple, in 1 John 4
There is beloved, a deep problem in our lives. The very thing G_d has implored us not to do hundreds of times in His written Word, and in His promptings in our spirit – is the very thing we are most likely to do.
Fear.
And fear is not just being afraid for our safety, or the necessary impulse to protect ourselves from imminent physical danger. Fear is the anxiety that comes when we look on a situation and feel the sense that all will not be well; that we may lose our comfort or position or reputation. And in doing fear, it seems quite reasonable. Because, everywhere we look, the impulses for fear abound.
Fear is not actually complicated. Fear is where we are looking.
Fear is the focusing of our own resources on a problem. We become uneasy because we know, deep down inside, we really can’t fix anything on our own. Our lives and the history of mankind prove this to be true. And this fear actually becomes (rightfully) abject terror when we look forward into the eternity we have had implanted in our hearts – and we see Him.
And this abject terror is the best news many of us will ever receive.
For in focusing our entire self only on G_d, we do indeed fear one thing. Him. But in focusing on Him, we are also seeing the Solution to any problem we could imagine. When we both suddenly and finally stop seeing G_d through the lens of our own weakness, and simply allow ourselves to see Him for who He really is – something astounding happens.
We see that the One Person we really should fear is the One who has made fear irrelevant. By His own power, in real Love, He has both Designed us for, and enabled us to have a relationship of communion with Himself. And in coming into communion with the One who we – at first – rightly feared, we are now turn around and look back on the other things that used to scare us.
They are gone.
Can we see it? When we are afraid, we are simply being sent a signal. Move closer beloved. Your Beloved Loves you, and the only way to chase everything else away is to begin to finally, really truly profoundly come to rest on the truth that we are Loved with a great and unending Love by an eternal and unchanging and omnipotent G_d.
Said simply: We gotta believe. Because if fear is coming back into the life of a believer, he is looking in the wrong direction.
Beloved, may this fool of a writer preach for a moment? The Love of G_d is utterly and completely real. And i like how a dear brother of mine puts it:
Someone once said that the protection of our physical selves is the last thing to go as we grow in trust in Him. I can vouch for that, as I've had a traumatic happening, which did threaten my life. I had struggled with fear even before that happened to me, in fact, I had prayed for God's courage a few months before, and then that happened. He gave it to me during the ordeal, but my body has been alerted because of that, and it still reacts, against my will, whenever similar circumstances present themselves. I know even in that, however, that He is sending one message to me over and over again, "Draw closer. Draw closer." Thanks for reminding me of this, as I get discouraged when I still experience this feeling of fear so many years later.
Thanks Patti. Just remember He is not discouraged with you when your old self reacts. He tells us in Psalm 103 that He looks upon us with compassion and loving pity. He knows we are but dust. Draw closer beloved. His heart is enormously for you. Grace and peace from a brother.