Fear is not my Name...

Last night I had a fearful Savannah come to me with a torn heart.  She had agreed to have a sleepover with one of her good friends but only because she didn't want to disappoint her. You see, her friend has a "hissy cat" that oftentimes attacks for no reason.  The thought of spending the night with that cat on the loose vs letting her friend down were the two choices laid out before her.  In order to help her sort through her feelings and make a decision, I had her speak to herself as if she were giving a friend advice.  I knew that she would never ask a friend to spend the  night in fear, and I hoped that once she looked at it from that perspective, that she would let herself off the hook as well.

I have made many compromises lately in order to avoid disappointing others.  I have been left feeling anxious and confused and wondering what is wrong with me and what God wants me to learn from this.  I say lately, but really this has been a lifetime struggle and it leaks into my relationship with Him as I am constantly feeling like I'm letting others down...letting Him down...and wondering how long He will "put up" with my divided heart.  As God so often does, He spoke to my own heart as I spoke to hers, and He asked me to apply this same method to myself and what I have been wrestling with as well:

"I see you struggling.  I see what your desire is.  God would never turn a heart away that is so desperate for Him!  You are being confused in order to darken your heart.  Fear is the weapon of choice but it is not yours to own as if it was your name and in your skin.  You have been made to be confused so that fear can easily trap you as you run to Him.  He is bigger than your fear and cannot be pushed away by it.  You weren't saved because you were fearless.  You were saved because you turned to Jesus and called Him Lord.  Do not let fear stop you from believing or taint the Gospel.  It is a choice!  You are still breathing!  The Holy Spirit lives to bring about the change that you are so desperate for.  Just believe!  Do not look back and fear.  Do not look forward and fear.  Instead, look up right now and believe!!"

All of us are lacking in one (or several) areas, or else we probably wouldn't even recognize our need for a savior.  What matters is whether or not we recognize that.  An animal would never willingly walk into a trap..by nature it is deceptive, but there is always something that draws that animal into it's clutches. Mine seems to be the need to please everyone and to find perfection in all things.  Yours may look different, but the bait is still intended for the same purpose- to confuse you, blind you, and leave you defenseless and stuck in your pain.  What matters is how you respond to this WHEN it happens.  Will you squirm around in your own strength and desperately try to pull your way out of it the way an animal does...causing more and more pain with each pull?  Or will you recognize your desperate state and cry out for help?  It is a choice.  Even if you are at this very moment looking down at bloody cuts and bruises and realizing that you have been deceived, you can choose to cry out!  He doesn't care how long you've been there or what you look like when He rescues you...He Himself was bloodied and bruised for you.  The difference?  He was not baited or trapped.  He knew exactly what He was walking into, and He chose to go anyway so that this very day you could be pulled from traps such as these and follow Him back Home to be bandaged up.  The choice is yours.

 "Fear is not my name.  It is not a part of my skin."  It is not so much a part of me that I am left without a choice in the matter, no matter how loud it screams that I am. True, that unless my sins- ALL OF THEM- were nailed  to that cross with Jesus Christ, then I cannot go on.  If there was anything left to do after the night my Lord was crucified, then I cannot do it.  If there are qualifications for being chosen, then I do not qualify.  If there is a limit as to how many times I can stumble as a Christian, then I have already exceeded them. If there is any sort of loophole to grace to be found, then I'm sure to have found it. There is not one ounce of me that doesn't contain that which nailed His Hands and Feet to that Cross.  But my faith is in Him and is dependent upon the FINISHED work at Calvary.  I am pressing on in the belief that His faithfulness is bigger than my doubts and my fears...and that those too were included on the night of His death, because He did not call to me so that I could walk through life afraid.  Fear is not my name.  It is not a part of my skin.