What Is There to Fear?

The Spirit calls me today. He reminds me that He is my Healer. I cry out to Him to come and do His wonderful work. I am such a mess and desperately need Him to help me sort things out. When I say I am a mess, it's all about my thoughts.

People in my life are a constant challenge to me. The enemy's assaults through people in my life are a challenge to me. But it is my reaction to all the challenges that mess me up.

To walk in the Spirit is a discipline of surrender. The hardest thing for me to give up is the personal sense of guilt for failure. Legalism has had a grip on my life since childhood and the perfectionism of keeping it's requirements can be exhausting. I think deep, analyze what I do against the standard of legalism and continue the sin spin....

The past season with the Holy One has brought awareness of this pattern and some degree of healing and I believe that this new season is going to break the mental sin spin. The process is slow but, then, eternity is without end so the clock and calendar doesn't matter to the Lord.

Today the Lord has asked me about my "anxious" thoughts. I love when He begins to question me to make me think and articulate to Him those thoughts, because I know He is going to reveal truth and that truth will set me free.

As I thought about my anxious thoughts, I came down to the fear. I am to be a "spokesman" to certain people in my life, as a servant of the Most High. The responsibility is charged with self-doubts. What if I say the wrong thing? What if I fail to say the right thing? What kind of a spokesman am I when I am not a good debater. All the questions about how will other people receive or interpret what I say? What if I am not hearing correctly, because a spokesman must only say what is given by the one who sends them? And then, what if, in my zeal, I drive people away from my Lord and offend the very ones I am called to speak to?

The Holy One speaks, "So, you fear your weakness, as well as your zeal?"

"Yep, that about sums it up".

He showed me Peter; devoted, zealous, walk-on-water, Peter, who blew it time and again. He took me back to the account of that early morning, Good Friday situation in the Garden, when the crowd came to arrest the Lord. Luke 22:50 and John 18:10. Peter, who was armed and dangerous, had a sword. He drew it and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his ear.

In the Luke account beginning at Luke 22:36-51, I noticed something very interesting. The Lord gave these disciples a new directive, and warning that persecution was about to get intense. He told them to get prepared and not only would they have to be prepared to pay their own way, but also a battle was about to unfold. "But now, if you have a purse take it and also a bag, and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one."

It's almost humorous, if not so serious, that the disciples took inventory and said to the Lord, "see, here are 2 swords". I can only imagine their confusion not realizing that the Lord was just giving them a heads up as to the danger they would be in as followers of Christ. Then the thought in their original thinking of the Messiah, to take on the world by the power of the sword was still on. Jesus replied, (I am sure while shaking His head at their lack of understanding of His mission), "That is enough". They missed the point but now was not the time to explain.

Very shortly, Peter was prompted to use the sword in his zeal to protect His Lord. Whatever the motivation of Peter's action, it was detrimental to the ultimate goal of the Savior and the purpose in this encounter and arrest. So the Lord stepped in to protect and preserve and heal the damage caused by His disciple. Peter got it wrong or over reacted or in fear, responded incorrectly. But in the end the Lord Sovereignly healed the ear severed by the "sword".

The point to me is that I am not to fear my failure as a servant of my Lord. I must trust that He stands ready to heal the consequences of our sometimes detrimental actions and re-actions to people or circumstances. We are all on a learning curve and at times we will "biff-it". But we must know that our Lord stands ready to offset any damages caused by His beloved Disciples, honestly acting out of zeal for Him, or fear of failure or misunderstanding His will. The Holy One wants us to thrive in our calling and stop the anxiety of the "what-ifs". What plan of the Sovereign of all eternity can I screw up, really?

So we must all go forward with confidence, not in ourselves always getting it right, but rather with all confidence in the One who calls us into action in the first place.

So, what do you have to fear in serving Him?

The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?