Fear

I wonder how much of my life is governed by fear, what do I do and not do because of fear. I love to write, I've written notebooks full of my thoughts and ideas. Most days I think that writing keeps me sane. But I am terrified of sharing the writing with others. Yet my heart aches and longs to write things that impacts that means something, that makes people think or even imagine this that make them change. I hesitate to post on here despite the fact that I am certain no one is actually reading this blog. (Most likely because I haven't told anyone about it.) All this fear while knowing that God does not want me to live a life of fear, He does not desire me to limit myself because of an emotion. Though I know He is fully aware of how fearful we humans are. He tells Adam and Eve to come out of hiding. He reminds Moses and Aaron not to fear, he tells Joshua about a zillion times. And yet it persists, and the enemy swoops in to remind and reinforce that all the fears could be well founded and why try to do something daring, something heroic anyway? Oh for a final solution and yet there isn't one. It is a daily walking, a battle to arrest the fear that creeps in and fend off the enemy that wants me to wallow in it. A daily battle.

Comfort in your perfect plan

That is so hard. I mean He is really sovereign. He is totally in charge. Nothing that happens to me takes Him by surprise. Every intricacy of this world has been accounted for by Him. And yet I am afraid. I cannot rest on this perfect plan business. I mean some moments it's there and I really feel relaxed and confident that everything is taken care of and there are no surprises to God.

But there are always surprises to me. I mean it's like a guarantee. I will be surprised for better or worse by the way God does things.

And He will not tell me how it's all going to happen and so I grow afraid. Or more than grow it is smack dab on top of me again. And is it just attack? I mean should I be standing against the enemy? Maybe it's all him, Satan, and I put too much of it on myself. Or maybe my faith is still small and weak. There are some things I want so badly and I am so afraid that the "he will give you the desires of your heart" verse just isn't meant for some situations and some desires.

A Beginning

I say it's a beginning but it's really just a demarcation. A point of reference where something shifted or changed but really I've been writing since middle school. So you might say that this entry is the first time I am publicly writing. That would be accurate. I think there really was only one beginning and I was not there. But I was in His mind, He knew me, He thought of me, He planned for me...in The Beginning.

Most of what I do, write, think, believe is a picking up on where someone else left off or adding to what has already been. There is only one who created stuff out of nothing and therefore actually engaged in a "beginning". But He is compelling me to expose my thinking to others, which I do with much trepidation. I'm not sure that any of it is really original, as I said I am picking up or combining and remixing what is already out there. Who am I or any of us to claim originality?

But it is time to shift and take what has been private, written in journals or rumbled around in my head and give it some order and expose it for examination from others.

So may this post be the pillar of stones that can remind me of when it began. To help me remember that it is a result of the mysterious mixing of my desires and His and that I am not alone in turning this direction. He drew me, He shaped me, he thought of this beginning at The Beginning.