Breaking Through Fear



There is nothing safe about this world.

Things change almost every minute.  People can say things that harm your soul  and break it to pieces in many different angles.  A job can make you lose your values and question your ideals.  A friend can make you feel like you're the most undesirable company.  A circumstance can be so overwhelming that it can make you feel your strength slip away and that fear of losing your grip on life, an insurmountable wall to climb over.

Fear rules with each chance it can take to rob you off the certainty that there is a hope that does not ever disappoint when your life can be hanging by a thread.  When your story seems to keep repeating like an endless transition played on loop.

Fear is loud and overbearing.  It makes you cower.  It makes you aggressive.  It makes you steal the control you do not own and end up distorting the graceful rhythm that is inherent in your life.  It makes you doubt that there is ever a chance that you will win and find joy.  It keeps your eyes fixed only on the increasing intensity of life's worries.

It makes you feel that you are never going to find that peace.  That you will never ever find that place of soothing consolation unless you beat yourself up to your brink and prove to the world that your hard work earned you that place you claim to have overcome.   It makes you feel that your life is not meant to be joyful and that  love is not free.

So you strive hard to gain control over everything that keeps this fear a terrorizing dragon just so it can be silenced and that you can tell yourself, you've done it.  You've overcome.  You've won.

But you don't really because it comes back.  Again and again and it has many faces.  First it appeared in relationships you don't want to lose.  So you clamor to keep them and you turn into a jealous person who clings with all her might to people you think owe you and you think you own.  Then it appeared in people who judged your inadequacies and failures.  Then it revealed itself again in a job that sucked out all your worth.

It's this dense black smoke.  That keeps on finding its way back to rob your heart of live-giving hope. 


No wonder He is called Saviour.  He knew that 2000 years after He gives up His life on that tree that the battle for hope will never quite end in this world just yet.  His tortured body taking every blow of judgment after judgment because He knew that condemnation is a sword that Fear uses to kill our hope.


But no wonder He is called Saviour.  All it takes to win over this condemning fate from our fear is to confess our belief in Him.  Our belief in all  He has done and what He continues to do in our world.  In our church.  In our life.  That one step of faith is all it takes to make the impossible happen.  That one step of faith made Peter walk on water.  That one step of faith made the bleeding woman well.  That one step of faith made the prostitute weep remorse for her unfaithfulness & there she found the most faithful love she can surrender her life to.

That one step of faith makes us cross-over that relentless guilt-punishment that keeps us paralyzed and unable to trust in the Saviour who keeps saving us from Fear over and over again.

Control makes us crack.  Surrender saves.  

The ways of grace our unfamiliar and at first they seem so uncertain when all you've known about winning back  your life is to take control of your life.  But when you've tried to take control over and over again the faster life slips through your fingers and leaves you helpless.  Then you realize that the control you've been trying pursue is what is making you cave in.  


This past week has been a graceful week.  And I am slowly learning to believe now that anxiety is not overcome by a series of plans that covers the ground your walking on.  Anxiety is overcome by Trusting in the Saviour.  The answer to life's question of hope.



This world is not a safe place and it will never be.


I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble but take heart.  I have overcome the world. - John 16:22



Weekends should be peaceful. 

Here are some links to share with you what brought me peace. 


Holley's advise on "Saying Goodbye to Busy"

A new song to sing right here.

Comments

  1. L. Sofia GonzalezNovember 26, 2012 at 10:32 PM

    Kathy!

    This little stranger returns after a few weeks of absence but GOSH, thank you SO much for this post! It's gorgeous in its truth and humility! God has blessed you with words certainly! I'll be returning to this space much more often! You're in my prayers!

    Sofia

    ReplyDelete

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