FMF- The Fear I Want

When I think of fear, of course my first thought is of all the fears that threaten me. Death of a child. That I’m truly unloveable. That people will hate me for my values and opinions.

Then I think of how I shouldn’t have fear, because perfect Love casts fear out. I know these things.

Each day, the news seems to bring us more and more reasons to fear for our lives. Fear for our children, our communities, our world. If we all want lives of peace and security, how is it the media finds so much to cover? Perhaps our fear drives us to harm, bully, threaten, diminish, even eradicate others in order to fill our small sense of security, however twisted it is.

When our fear is without the hope of Peace, we lash out in a self-protective, fight-over-flight, ironically self-destructive, way of life. A life that promotes the things we fear most…

That’s not the fear I want reigning in my life.

A number of years ago I had the life-changing opportunity of studying in Jerusalem. I remember the day I first visited the Western Wall… a remaining wall that surrounds the Temple Mount. The sacred atmosphere of the place was silencing. Mind you, as a follower of Christ, I know that God doesn’t live in an earthly location any longer. When the Messiah came, He gave us the Holy Spirit to reside in us. I didn’t approach that wall in the same way that many of my Jewish brothers and sisters do. Yet, I learned something from them.

That day I met, for the first time, my God as the Ancient of Days.

God has been my Present. Relevant. Current. Part of my everyday world. Yes, He is the God of forever also… but I experience Him in the now.

Not that day. That day when I approached the walls that scream silenced of all they’ve witnessed… I met a very old God. An ancient God. Not a God with dementia or Alzheimers or blindness or a cane or the other things we think of when we think of “old.”

I met a God who’d been around a long, long time. Like, forever.

And I felt small. Humbled. Amazed. Awe-struck. Yes, He’s my Present. He’s my Now. He’s the I AM.

And He’s the Alpha. The Before-Time Existed. The One who breathed life into the very first man. The One who separated light from darkness. Who passed before Moses on the mountain in all His glory.

I met Him.

And I’d always known Him.

This is the fear I want in my life.

The fear that I find before the throne of an almighty, terribly holy, just and merciful Ancient of Days.

The fear that reminds me that I am created.

The fear that calls for deepest respect. Admiration. Awe. And a healthy sense of my place.

Not the fear that threatens… but the fear that speaks security.

The fear inspired by One who is able to keep His promises.

And whose promises are GOOD.