Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Limits of Fear

Sometimes it is easy to think that God is letting things happen to us, or that He is holding back the miracles for some sort of higher reason. Maybe the reason is us. Maybe the only thing keeping Him from pouring them on is our fear of what those miracles really might demand of us. The other day I was reading in Luke 8 and was struck by how the people begged Christ to leave them, immediately after seeing Him cast the unclean spirits out of a lunatic they had all known forever.

Why would they do that?

Because they were afraid. Perhaps they were afraid because of their own guilt. Perhaps they were afraid because they were pretty comfortable with having that lunatic around as it was and it was just a little too much change, thank you very much. For whatever reason, they "besought him to depart from them." And that is exactly what He did. Who knows what miracles He had in store for them. What else could Luke have told us? We'll never know. Their fear kept them from what Christ could have done for them. Does mine? Does yours? Does my fear of truly becoming what the Lord knows I can become shut me down and make me turn from the Lord, saying "Thanks, but no thanks. . I'm good." Am I willing to let Him in? Will I give in to fear or embrace faith, trusting that if Christ hands me a rope, whatever it leads to will make me stronger, purer, and happier? Or will I drop it in fear and back away. I'm trying to hold on to that rope and one day at a time, I feel my fear leaving me. Slowly but surely, I am becoming brave.

1 comment:

  1. I LOVE this! (and I'm so there at this point in my life, as well). Thanks for putting some of my own feelings into words and making it coherent.

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