The Divine Embrace

My life has been in a fairly disorganized mess for the last year and a half. I had been taking care of my mom for three years 200 miles away from my husband and my own home. When Mom passed away a year ago March I found myself scrambling to move back home before my husband and I headed out on a road trip vacation. While I lived away from home, I accumulated a whole lot of stuff. We started two businesses while I was living with Mom and everything for each of them was housed with me. Our home in the woods is not large and doesn't have a lot of storage space. I didn't do so well over the winter juggling the grieving process and organizing all that stuff back into our home. This summer it was definitely on the docket. Then my dad passed away. I have found myself having another season of grief and lack of motivation. There is much to do around our house and consequently there are treasures stored away in boxes still.

Which brings me to this post. I just found a wonderful book which I had forgotten about: The Divine Embrace, by Ken Gire. Besides the fact that I love anything by Ken Gire, the subtitle drew me in. "An invitation to the dance of intimacy with Christ. One exhilarating, ennobling, uncertain step at a time."

As I leafed through it, reading my underlines, I remembered how much I liked the book. I remembered how encouraging it was to me and how it touched a true place in my heart that deeply wants to shove fear aside and be close to Jesus no matter what the cost. His analogy of a dance is fitting as well for me. Ever since the days of high school and college dances were past, I have been timid about dancing. I took a Sunday School class at church which used the book The Artist's Way, whose purpose is to help artists (and anyone really) find or re-find their creativity. In several of the exercises readers are asked to list things they'd like to do if they were unafraid, or things that symbolize freedom and such things. Dancing seemed to show up a number of times on my lists.

Why is it that fear keeps me from the things I truly and deeply want? I think it's because those things do not come with a guarantee that they won't also perhaps involve some kind of suffering, pain, or discomfort. I hate that life is like that. There just is no guarantee. There is no fully safe place this side of heaven. I resisted swallowing that truth for a long time. I hid myself from it, trying to muddle through with my fears and pains and problems. It was as if God couldn't even help me because I put my head in the sand and refused to meet Him in reality. I seem to recall Jesus telling a woman at a well that those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

I kept living with my head in the sand, though, not really addressing the issues. God would bring them up with regular faithfulness and I would argue with Him and complain to Him that I wanted MORE safety and MORE security than He offers while we're living this earthly life. Over the years, God, in His kindness and determination for me to have something more than fear in this life, kept challenging me to trust Him. Somewhere in those years, I saw this book by Ken Gire. I didn't read it for awhile after buying it but when I did, boy did it hit the spot.

Here are some lines from the first chapter that speak what I in no way can say better than the author:

"...the Christian life is about intimacy, not technique. The Lord of the dance doesn't want us worrying about our feet. He doesn't want us wondering about the steps ahead. He merely wants us to feel the music, fall into His arms, and follow His lead.


There are places He wants to take us on the dance floor, things He wants to show us, feelings He wants to share with us, words He wants to whisper in our ear. This is what the divine embrace is -- an invitation to a more intimate relationship with Christ, one exhilarating, ennobling, uncertain step at a time.


We can dance
Or we can sit it out.


If we dance, we may step on His toes. And He may step on ours. We may stumble and bump into other people. We may fall on our faces and make fools of ourselves. People may talk, they may avoid us, they may even ridicule us.


If you fear those things, you may want to sit it out. If you do, you won't have to worry. You'll be safe in your seat along the wall. You'll also miss the dance. More importantly, you'll miss the romance.


At some time or another, I have chosen to sit it out. Fear is a big reason. Fear of the attention it would bring -- perhaps the criticism. Fear of embarrassment and possible estrangement. Fear of not being in control of my life, my career, my future. Fear of being led to places that would be uncomfortable, even painful.


There are two things I have learned from the divine embrace.
- That perfect love really does cast out fear.
- And that I would rather dance poorly with Jesus than sit perfectly with anyone else."


I want to dance.
I want to accept His invitation to dance with Him.
And I want to let Him lead.

Psalm 31

As I read Psalm 31 yesterday, I found so many beautiful and fitting verses. I underlined in both columns of my NASB/The Message Parallel Bible.


"Be to me a rock of strength, a stronghold to save me." ~ Psalm 31:2


"For You are my strength. Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have ransomed me, o Lord, God of truth." ~ Psalm 31:4b-5


Be my safe leader, be my true mountain guide. Free me from hidden traps; I want to hide in You." ~ Psalm 31:3 MSG


"You saw my pain, You disarmed my tormentors" ~ Psalm 31:7 MSG

I love the Psalms. They are so personal and so emotional. I go to them when I am troubled, when I am afraid, or when I don't really know what I'm feeling. I have so many underlines in them that often I can leaf through the pages and be "grabbed" by a number of beautiful verses that speak to and of my heart. The psalmists often write about enemies, tormentors, those that lie in wait and are out to harm, etc. Though David, being the author of many psalms, was literally being chased and hunted for destruction by Saul and his armies, I easily relate the enemies he wrote of to mean my own personal enemies and our real enemy, Satan. My personal enemies are such things as fear, my particular propensities to sins, my weaknesses, and such. In this way, the Psalms speak even more powerfully to me in my areas of personal challenges.

When I read, "You saw my pain; You disarmed my tormentors", I remember that Jesus has already disarmed my tormentor of fear. His death on the cross took away the power of that enemy. I don't have to be afraid. He has made the solution for my fear. It is His love. I can be safe from the torments of fear; He has disarmed its power. Now... to embrace this truth and make it a part of every cell of my body! That is my quest! To remember that HE has the power and not fear. I am no longer a servant of fear, having to obey its every knock, its every whim, its every command. I have a choice.

I have a choice. A choice to trust. Or a choice to roll over to fear again.

"...Terror on every side....But as for me,
I trust in You, O Lord,
I say, "You are my God."
My times are in Your hand."   ~ Psalm 31: 13-15a

"Hour by hour I place my days in Your hand,
safe from the hands out to get me." ~ Psalm 31:15 MSG

I Run To You

I've been having some fear lately. One of the things that's been getting to me is the fact that it's monsoon season....and I really hate thunderstorms! I don't hate all thunderstorms. I rather like the kind with thunder that rumbles and rolls in the distance. It's the ones with big flashes of lightening followed REALLY closely by enormous crashes of thunder that I hate. Living in the woods here, thunderstorms can get pretty wild. Lately we've had some ominous dark skies and some torrential rains. The lightening, in hindsight, has not been as bad as some I've lived through. Even so, when I see those thick dark clouds surrounding me, I get afraid. I have endured all these recent storms alone as the timing is such that my husband has been away during each of them.

Along with lightening and thunder, other things have fostered the creeping in of fear lately, too.  I wrote in my journal this morning: "I need to focus on God's love. I have been afraid lately."

I woke up with a phrase from one of Amy Grant's new songs playing in my head, "If you are brave, then come into my world." The song is very powerful, knowing her "world" when she wrote it was full of pain and turmoil. She felt alone and overwhelmed and "no one came to call" anymore.

Whenever I awake with a song in my head, while I realize it's because I've been hearing the music, I also take note of it and try to see what I can glean from it for myself. I think the Holy Spirit often puts songs, or specific phrases of songs, into my heart and head as gifts to me, as things to get my attention and think about. So today, I pondered these lyrics,  I couldn't help but think of them as if God were the speaker rather than a person.  "If you are brave, then come into My world."

What would my life be like if I stepped fully into God's world, God's possession, God's authority? This is another place where fear has often been the victor in my life. I've hesitated to "give God my all", hesitated to surrender all of me. Today I wrote, "I still fear what He'll 'do' to me or allow. Oh, let's face it -- I'm afraid of giving up the control of my own life. And yet this 'control' leads to most, if not all, of the unhappiness in my life. Being in control is way too big a task for someone who actually has very little control, very little power. Why don't I freely submit --RUN to submit -- to the One who not only has the power, but has the authority AND is Himself LOVE. Lord, help me to run to You." Then I wrote the words to a song we sing at church:

I run to You, I run.
I run to You, my constant love
I run to You, where else could I run to?
I run to You.

I've been reading the Bible out of my new parallel Bible that has the New American Standard and The Message side by side. I'm reading a Psalm and one chapter from the New Testament each day. In turning to today's Psalm in The Message I was hit with,

"I run to You, God. I run for dear life." ~ Psalm 31:1

Guess that's my message for the day. Run to God.

BibleGateway.com

Since I listed some scriptures yesterday without typing them out, I thought I'd tell you about BibleGateway.com.  If you haven't come across it yet, it's an online "exhaustive concordance" of the Bible.  A concordance is a listing of key words and the scripture references to where they're found in the Bible.  An exhaustive concordance is just what it sounds like.  It's a collection of ALL the keywords in the Bible and their references.  They've exhausted the task, it's complete and finished! (It must have been exhausting!)

An exhaustive concordance is a great tool when studying the Bible. They make hard copies, like the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible for the King James Version, or The New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (a cherished reference book of mine that I believe might be out of print but can be found used), and the newest contribution to the world of hard bound concordances, The Strongest NASB Exhaustive Concordance .

These hard bound volumes are awesome but they're large and bulky so Bible Gateway can be a huge benefit.  If a Bible isn't handy but the internet is, you can go to BibleGateway.com and look up a specific passage, search for a scripture whose reference escapes you by using keywords, read entire chapters of the Bible, and even listen to the Bible.

Check it out!

A Word About The Narrow Way

One of the verses I included in yesterday's post is a source of much controversy.

Jesus said,
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." ~ John 14:6

It is sometimes hard for us to believe God would be so restrictive and stringent about how one gets accepted into heaven.  After all, there are a lot of good people in this world.  You're telling me that if they believe in God and are good people, but don't happen to receive Jesus' death on the cross for themselves, they're not going to make it to heaven?

That is what the Bible says.  This is a heated discussion these days.  No one wants to be told there is only ONE way.  No one wants to believe in ONE truth. This day and age wants there to be more than one "truth" and wants all roads to lead to God. In reality, this belief is a means for people to continue being their own god and in charge of their destinies. We each make the rules, we each say what is acceptable to God, we each determine what is "good enough" for Him, and we each say by what means we will be received by Him. By this we each put ourselves above God. Basically, this is what sin is all about.

If you're having a hard time accepting that there is only one way to God as written in the Bible, here are a few things to think about:

If God is God then it is He that makes the rules, not us. 
I know that can sound harsh, but it is also at the crux of the issue.  Even as a Christian I've spent a lot of time resisting God's ways (mainly because of fear which I'll write about at another time as it relates to how the fear of trusting Him breeds this kind of resistance.)  Every one of those times have been me refusing to acknowledge God as God, His rights to BE God, and my proper relationship to Him as His child.  He has the authority.  I do not.  Accepting this is critical to being in right relationship with Him.  Think of a child and parent: if the child is rebellious, wanting to make up their own rules about how they live their life in relationship with the parent, it's not a good or right relationship.  They don't understand where the authority lies and are refusing to submit to it.  A right and good relationship isn't possible. 

The truth is true whether I believe it or not.  
My belief in something does not make it true.  Likewise, my disbelief in something does not make it false.  It is either true or false independent of my belief in it.


The truth, by its very nature, is exclusive.
For example, 2 + 2 = 4.  There are countless millions of numbers that 2 + 2 does not equal.  I can believe with all my heart, with utmost sincerity and with good intentions that 2 + 2 = 5, but come test day I'm going to get it marked wrong.


Well, if there's only one way to God, then shouldn't He spell it out for us? 

He does. 

"Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins." ~ Acts 10:43


"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."  ~ Matthew 7:13-14

"and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.  ~Acts 13:39


"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." ~ John 14:6


"And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." ~ Acts 4:12


I hope it's not hard for you to swallow that there is only one way to God. Jesus said in John 8:32 "and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free."  Think about the peace that comes along with knowing the truth.  No more wondering. No more guessing. No more taking your best stab and hoping you're right.  When it comes to something this important, aren't you glad God spelled it out and didn't leave us to guess what is acceptable to Him, especially considering the consequences of getting it wrong. Submitting to God's truth as truth brings freedom from lies and their consequences.  And brings a whole bushel of blessings.

These things are found through the narrow gate, the exclusive truth about Jesus:

Forgiveness of sins. (Acts 10:43)
Abundant life  (John 10:10)
The truth (John 8:32)
Freedom (John 8:32)
Heaven (1 John 3:16)
God's love poured out on you (1 John 3:1)

What It Means To Be A Christian

I want to take a few moments to explain what I mean by "Christian."

The term Christian means, "Christ one," as in, a follower of Jesus Christ. 

This is more than a general belief in the Christian God.  I grew up going to church, hearing about God and that Jesus died for our sins, but I didn't get it.  I didn't see what it meant.  Somewhere along the line I had even come to think God was just for little kids.  How I came to believe this I'll never know, especially when every Sunday I went to a church filled with adults, some of them teaching me in Sunday School. 

It was when I was in seventh grade that a conversation with a friend led to her asking me, "Don't you know you have to ask Jesus into your heart?" No, I didn't know that.  I remember feeling guilty and somehow "caught" because I had left God behind in my younger years believing Him to be irrelevant for me. Then when I was 14 I heard about God in a different way.  I went to a Bible Study conducted by a Christian ministry called Young Life.  I was in a room with girls my own age and I noticed something very different about them.  One evening, we were asked to break up into groups of two.  I confessed to my partner that I felt very different from the rest, that they all talked about God as if they knew Him personally, and I didn't get it.  That night, I saw God is real and that He wanted to have personal relationships with people. Drawing on my seventh grade experience, I went home and asked Jesus into my heart.

I became a Christian that night.  My understanding of what that meant grew as I continued going to Bible studies and grew in my faith. 

Being a Christian means you have placed your trust in Jesus for your getting to heaven.  Until we trust Jesus as the means to heaven, we are trusting something else.  Usually we're trusting that we're a good enough person, and only the super bad people go to hell.  If we have a moral compass and are a decent person, we trust God will accept us based on that. 

That's not the way it works, though. 

We can't be good enough. 

God's holiness demands a standard of perfection. 

If I hadn't blown it long before, I'm positive I blew it when I stole my best friend's pencil in second grade. (Sorry, Pam. Thanks for forgiving me and laughing with me over this about 30 years later!)  We cannot be perfect so we are not fit for heaven.  God is a God of love, yes, but He is also a holy, pure, and righteous God.  His purity cannot abide the dirtiness of sin.  In fact, the Bible says that our righteousness (the best we can come up with on our own)  is like filthy rags to Him; His purity is that far above us.

Yet, He loves us.  He wants a relationship with us.  Think about that for a second; it's quite amazing.  He WANTS a relationship with you.  He doesn't want any of us to be separated from Him, either on earth or in hell.  He wants us with Him because He loves us.

So, there's a dilemma:  He wants relationship with us; He loves us; He wants us to be with Him now and in heaven, BUT, we have sin, we are unclean and cannot share His presence, and are therefore destined to be separated from Him not only on this earth but also in eternity after we die.

Enter, the solution.  God came up with the solution Himself.  He, being Three in One in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, chose to come to earth Himself in the form of Jesus the Son and take the penalty of our sin upon Himself. 

"The wages of sin is death." it says in Romans 6:23.  We sinned.  He never sinned.  He lived a perfectly sinless life here on earth and He came for the expressed purpose of dying in each of our places. 

That's the part I never got.  All my growing up years I'd heard "Jesus died for us" and "Jesus died for our sins", but I never got it.  I never caught on that:

1.) He died for me, not just the collective "us," and

2.) He died in my place.  "For us" means "in our place" as well as "for our benefit".  He made the sacrifice of Himself so that our sin was posted to His account and His sinless righteousness can be posted to our account.  All that is required of us is to believe this.  His death has made forgiveness available to us.  Our belief in His solution makes it effective for us.

When we stop trusting ourselves to be acceptable to God and begin to trust in Jesus' death as the means to make us acceptable to God, we've become Christians.  God sees us through Christ's sacrifice and considers us clean.  That's what is meant by the expressions which talk about "Jesus' blood washing us clean", or Christians being "covered by His blood". 
 
You don't have to have a stand-out experience like I did to become a Christian.  Some people's story of coming to belief is gradual and they cannot pin-point a specific time when they came to belief.  Others can identify the date and time.  The term "asking Jesus into your heart" has become a common means of declaring this belief.  Another means of declaring your faith in His death for you is by praying a prayer like this one:

God, I know I am a sinner. My sin separates me from You.  I cannot meet your standard on my own.  I cannot be good enough for heaven, I cannot earn my way there.  I believe what Jesus did on the cross for me.  I place my trust in His death for me - in my place - as the means by which I am forgiven and can now enter into a right relationship with You.  Thank You, Jesus, for dying for me.

The word "gospel" means "good news." The solution has been given and it doesn't depend on our hopeless attempts at being good enough! That is good news, indeed.

- - - - - - - - - -

Here is the Good News laid out in 12 scriptures:


"All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."  ~ Romans 3:23


"But we are all like an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."  ~ Isaiah 64:6 (NKJV)


"There is none righteous, not even one."  ~Romans 3:10

"For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  ~ Romans 6:23

"...by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin."  ~ Romans 3:20

"For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law."  ~ Galatians 3:21

"But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."  ~ Romans 5:8

"For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."  ~ John 3:16

"I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly."   ~ John 10:10

"For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast."  ~Ephesians 2:8-9

"...if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly"  ~ Galatians 2:21

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."  ~ John 14:6

Books That Have Been Helpful

One of the things I want to do on this blog is include resources that have helped me.  Whether it's a comforting song, a quote, scriptures (especially scriptures), or a book...if it's helped and blessed me, I want to share it with you.

I've found a number of books that have been helpful to me over the years on my journey from fear toward faith.  I'll be writing a post about each one as time goes on.  For now, here's a little bit about them with links so you can take a look at them for yourself.  Maybe they'll be a blessing to you, too.



IF YOU WANT TO WALK ON WATER YOU'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF THE BOAT
by John Ortberg

This book surprised me in that I didn't realize when I picked it up that it would be addressing the issue of fear as much it did.  With a title like that, I should have known, but somehow I didn't see it coming in the way God used it in my life.  One of the biggest things I took away from this book is a single illustration of a little girl standing on the edge of a pool being asked to jump into her daddy's arms in the water.






RUTHLESS TRUST
by Brennan Manning

I loved this book.  Brennan Manning, a humble and admitted "ragamuffin" who himself has dealt with fear issues, challenges us toward a "stubborn trust," an "obstinate trust" and even a "ruthless trust" in God.  He uses many more adjectives to describe the kind of trust I think we all, inside, actually long to place fully in God. There were so many awesome things in this book I filled the inside cover with notes and quotes.








TRUE FACED
by Thrall, McNicol, and Lynch

This is a book about learning to live in God's grace.  It shows us that walking a path of performance in the hopes of pleasing God only causes us to miss an intimate relationship with Him entirely.  It's about taking off our masks and living real before God and others.  It's about trusting God and others with our real selves.  Awesome stuff.






BO'S CAFE
by Lynch, Thrall, and McNicol

This is a partner book with True Faced above.  It is True Faced with skin on.  Bo's Cafe is an easy-read novel that puts you right in the middle of the True Faced truths being lived out.  It shows us what such a life of grace and trust looks like.  Very encouraging.







HINDS' FEET ON HIGH PLACES
by Hannah Hurnard

Simply a MUST READ for all who battle with fear.  This little analogy has been a classic for decades.  I have read it at least three times and I am always blessed, challenged, and given courage and hope through it.  In fact, I recently bought a new edition that includes devotional entries written by another author.  I look forward to reading it again soon and using the devotional entries along side.  (If you'd rather have the devotional edition, it can also be found with a little extra searching from the link at left.)




A SHEPHERD LOOKS AT PSALM 23
by Phillip Keller

I had heard a number of sermons in my life that offered a few insights into the relationship between sheep and shepherd.  These details and tidbits of information really blessed and expanded my understanding of Psalm 23.  But...to have an entire book filled with such details written by a real sheep rancher!  Well, there was so much more in there that encouraged me to trust our tender, care giving God.






LIVE A PRAYING LIFE
by Jennifer Kennedy Dean

This is a Bible study workbook that doesn't necessarily deal with fear but at the time I went through it, it so blessed me and helped me to trust God that I just had to include it.  I had been struggling terribly with trusting God.  His very sovereignty scared me to pieces.  My prayer life was stifled because I didn't know how to pray to a sovereign God who I thought was just going to do what He wanted anyway.  That is still a mystery but this study was a huge blessing in my journey.

If She Had Heeded Her Fear....

I took an Art Expressions Bible study class a couple years ago. It was the neatest Bible study I've ever participated in. We did lots of different projects with different media and different meditation exercises. The consistent stream of focus running through every project was quieting our hearts, meditating on scripture, and hearing what God had to say to us individually.

The class was for non-artists as well as artists. The teachers were wonderfully creative artists who encouraged every timid woman interrested to give it a try. The results were beautiful. Hidden creativity came out in some and boundaries of fear, intimidation, and inadequacy were broken through. The women had fun.  And they were sweetly ministered to by God.

One of our projects was to read through the story of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years.  (Mark 5:24-34) How she sought Jesus in the crowds as He was on his way to heal a little girl, Jairus' daughter, who was coincidentally 12 years old. We were asked to read the passage over and over, focusing on what it must have been like to be that woman. What was she feeling when she reached out to touch Jesus' garment? What did she experience when she realized she had been healed? And what was going on inside her when Jesus called her out, saying "Who touched Me? Someone touched Me for I felt power go out of Me"?

The art part of our project was interesting. We were to draw faces with our non-dominant hand on torn out pages of text. We were to draw as many as we could in two minutes, each on a different page. In the end, we chose which one we liked the most and glued it onto an 8x10 canvas.

Next we painted the background, the face, and the woman's head clothing. It was really fun and very interesting to try to put on the canvas what we had "seen" in this woman through our meditation exercises.

This poor woman must have felt so beaten down and tired from her illness. All the blood loss alone would certainly make her tired, let alone the enormous ramifications of her condition. Because of her "issue of blood" she was "unclean" among her people. The stigma must have been terrible. How desperately she must have longed to be normal and accepted once again.

She shouldn't have been in the crowd, not with her uncleanness. But she was desperate. She must have been so tired of announcing "Unclean!" whenever she came into a crowd. Her faith was large in that she believed that all she needed to do was touch Jesus' garment and she could be healed. She may have thought, "if I can just touch Him then I'll be healed and I wont' have to worry about being in the crowd." She wanted to keep herself hidden and secret.

She was healed. Oh, what she must have felt at that moment! She shrank back into the crowd, enjoying this private miracle that had just taken place in her body and in her soul. But wait...He knows something happened. He's calling for the one who touched Him. Everyone was touching Him in that crowd yet He was calling for the one who touched Him.

The scripture says that she came forward with fear and trembling and told Him the truth.  What impacted me the most was that though she was afraid, she came. I wrote on the back of the canvas the things God pointed out to me as I listened to Him on the passage.

If you can't read it very well, this is what I wrote:

. She had huge faith.

. Yet she trembled with fear when He called her out.

. But she came.  She drew close to Him.

. If she had shied away, fading back into the crowd --heeding her fear--she would not have heard Him call her "Daughter".  She would not have heard His love for her.  She would not have seen His compassion and felt His love.

I tried to feel her emotions right along with her. I wrote a brief description on the back of the canvas. It reads:

"Relief. Peace. It's finally over. Uh oh...He's calling me out. I'm caught. But...ohhh...He's so gentle and so kind. He loves me? He calls me Daughter? *Sigh.*  Peace. Rest"

I put tears in her eyes.  The glistening eyes of relief at last.  The watering eyes of a heart that finally knows rest. The welling tears of an outcast being called "Daughter".
 

The thing that has stuck with me about this exercise, the thing I believe God wanted me most to learn is that

If she had heeded her fear,

she would not have heard Him call her Daughter.

Often, fear keeps us from even drawing near to our Healer. Fear can make us hide.  We can hide behind our own self-protection, worried that perhaps we'll be met with a stern God who is tired of our fear. Or we want the fear to go away before we venture to move our true heart closer to Him. Just make the fear go away and then I'll let down my guard, OK, God?  We want guarantees first.  But this woman came afraid.  She moved toward what she knew was right, despite her fear.  She was afraid, but she didn't choose her fear.  She chose Him.  And because of that, she got to hear Him call her Daughter. 

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.  ~ James 4:8

Fear Strikes Again

I did it again today.  I let fear dictate my thoughts and actions and I wound up selfish, self-protective, and self-consumed.  Why do I continue to think that if everything in my outer world is just like I want it that this will somehow make everything alright inside me?  Why do I try to control the outer elements of my world as if all this just-so-ness will make my world safer and manageable?

Fear makes me want control.  In obvious scenarios, but also - very sneakily - in senseless little scenarios.  Control means self-centeredness.  And trust me, it's not pleasant to be around.

Just keepin' it real with you, folks.