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.