Grace That Is Bigger Than My Fear And Failure

Getting honest with ourselves does not make us unacceptable to God. It does not distance us from God, but draws us to Him—as nothing else can—and opens us anew to the flow of grace. While Jesus calls each of us to a more perfect life, we cannot achieve it on our own. To be alive is to be broken; to be broken is to stand in need of grace. It is only through grace that any of us could dare to hope that we could become more like Christ. The saved sinner with the tilted halo has been converted from mistrust to trust, has arrived at an inner poverty of spirit, and lives as best he or she can in rigorous honesty with self, others, and God. The question the gospel of grace puts to us is simply this: Who shall separate you from the love of Christ? What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that your weakness could separate you from the love of Christ? It can’t. Are you afraid that your inadequacies could separate you from the love of Christ? They can’t. Are you afraid that your inner poverty could separate you from the love of Christ? It can’t. Difficult marriage, loneliness, anxiety over the children’s future? They can’t. Negative self-image? It can’t. Economic hardship, racial hatred, street crime? They can’t. Rejection by loved ones or the suffering of loved ones? They can’t. Persecution by authorities, going to jail? They can’t. Nuclear war? It can’t. Mistakes, fears, uncertainties? They can’t. The gospel of grace calls out, Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord. You must be convinced of this, trust it, and never forget to remember. Everything else will pass away, but the love of Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Faith will become vision, hope will become possession, but the love of Jesus Christ that is stronger than death endures forever. In the end, it is the one thing you can hang onto.”
~ Brennan Manning,

For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you My promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
~ The prophet Jeremiah in Chapter 29

Oh beloved, it is true. For so many years this fool of a writer fought against a demon of fear. Everything made me anxious. And my worries about the short, mid, long-term, and eternal future drove me nearly to insanity. Fear gripped my stomach and my mind. Fear tore at my sanity. My fears made me feel that I had to do something about them. And yet, anything I did in my own strength, just made them worse.

My approach was to try and find comfort from my fears in things that would not give the comfort they promised. I put chemicals in me. I took in media. I ate till I was sick. I slept until my body hurt. None of it worked. Fear just pounded me. And the more noise it made as it pummeled, the more I looked away from any workable solution.

And the farther I got from the truth, the less sure I became about the goodness and grace of G_d. I took on some sort of an idea (read lie) that said that He was, at best, tolerating me and overlooking my failures. But, I really had dropped grace altogether and was fully into some sort of Law-based mode that expected G_d to pay me back for my mounting failure and sin.

Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.
~German Proverb

And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom he justified He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the One who died—more than that, Who was raised—Who is at the right hand of God, Who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For Your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Romans 8

Grace is a certain beginning of glory in us.
~Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
And… i had missed it completely. 
This same G_d Whom i feared would pay me back for my failures of Him did what i never expected. While in the midst of my idiocy, He was shoring up my life in ways that were exceedingly and abundantly larger that my failures. His Great Love was covering the multitude of my sins, even when i could not see it.
And then, when in the depth of my fallenness, i did call out to Him with my whole heart, His answer was so near. It was so real. There was no prescribed time of “timeout” or testing to see whether i had learned to be faithful like some good-behaving little boy. There was simply this in-rushing of the One Who had been with me in my exile, and would be with me in my return to His family and Its business of fulfilling the Great Commission.  He put me back to work in plans He had kept warm while i was so cold.
He was also shepherding a dream that i had nearly forgotten. 
Over the years, i had been called to be part of sharing Life and Light and Hope and Living Water around the world, but especially in China. Actually, my fears nearly crushed this sense. In fact, my fears nearly crushed everything about me. But He had not forgotten. And as He restored me, He reignited the call and has been training me up for the main mission He has had for me for decades. 
In a few days i will be leaving one country for another, on the way Home. And in this place, i will have the opportunity to share Hope in a country that has shunned it for many decades. This may be my final stop, but i will leave that up to Him. He is the One who is making the plans anyway, and He sure has done a better job at it than i ever could have imagined.
Along the way, He has drenched me in His Grace and supplied me with a wife and friend to go along the path as well. He has given me a place to put my stuff on a little island in The Philippines. But mostly, He has set my heart on fire with His flame of Love. And even better: The fear is gone.
So, are you afraid? Oh, i am not talking about the temptation or impulses to be fearful. No, i am talking about the real thing. Look away from it beloved. Do not make contact with the foul thing. Leave it, and look to the One who will never abandon you or forsake you. Tonight is your night. Time to live free from your fear.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. 
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. 
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. 
And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear’s path, 
and only I will remain.
~ From Frank Herbert’s, Dune and the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.