Fear and Hope

This is the picture by Eugene Burnard showing the fear and hope of John and Peter running to the tomb on Easter Morning! I pray that you are filled with that same spirit as we start this Easter season!

Bumps in the Road.

It happens every summer, or maybe I should say that it happens almost every summer. We get a "Summer song!" Now, I know we are still in the strong holds of winter, but we have found our summer song! It's new but I'm sure if you love Despicable Me as much as I do, you have heard this song! 

Click Here!

It's Happy by Pharrell Williams and it's also the song from Despicable Me 2. Hearing this song makes me flat out happy! Preacher man and I downloaded it last night, and danced ourselves silly! You can not listen to this song and not be changed!

We should have things like this song in our lives to help us get over the bumps in the road. I don't want things in my life that halfway work, or show up for part time involvement. If I need help, I want help. No messing around! 

Right now, I believe I'll be listening to a lot of this song! Where we are right now is where the rubber hits the road, and it's hard. In all honesty, I don't think any of this journey is going to be a cake walk. Seems like the more you trust God, the more you need to trust God. Dah! 

Discernment is work, and it's work that requires all of you, and it wears you out. I feel like everyday, we start over again from scratch. I look at the insurmountable barriers that lay between us and a church plant… and I gasp. It's enough to make you take that job just so some money is coming in, even though you know that's not what is required. 

We are reopening A Workman Services. She has laid dormant for 7 years, while we were learning combat tactics. This is by no means the way we planned any of this ministry to happen…But God! We are grateful for His plan for our life. 

We are also in the process of discerning what our ministry is going to look like. It's crazy, really it is. How many people do you know that do this kinda stuff? We talk about listening to God and going where He leads, even if it's uncomfortable. So here we are.

So here's the deal: You gotta have things in your life that help get you over the bumps in the road. God has given us the ability to be moved by music. When you need some help over the bump that's appeared in the road, find that song, that summer song, and dance your feet off friend! There is a plan, you just aren't in charge!     

Fearless?

So we start another week. Do we have to? Well, yes, we do, cuz I don't want to  stay around in last week, do you?

I want to say a few more words about fear. It really is an easy topic to talk about because so many of us are eat up with it. We like to think we aren't, we like to think we are brave and courageous. That we have No Fear, (wasn't that a logo a while back?) which would be the absence of fear.

Fearlessness in not the same as the absence of fear. When we are fearless, we are very much aware of the fear we face. I think about it this way. When we lived in Hawaii, I was afraid of two things. Getting burned alive by a volcano eruptions and the high dive at the pool. Now we lived on Oahu, and the active volcano was on the Big Island, but I was still had this fear. One year, we took a family trip to the Big Island and they have a chair called Pele's chair. (Pele is the goddess of the volcano.) You could sit in this chair and make a wish. My sister did just that and wished the volcano would erupt, because it had been thinking about it for years, but hadn't busted through the surface. So what do you think happened? Yes, my fear had come to life, we were going to die from this eruption and it was going to hurt really bad!

So what does my family do? You would think we would get on the first plane out of there and head to Alaska! BUT NO!!! We pack up and drive right down where the hot action is so the kids could see this once in a life time flowing of melted earth! You know what happened when we got there? It was hot, hotter than anything I had ever experienced, but it was also beautiful. In fact it took my breath away at life in the making.

Now the high dive, it was a horse of a different color. It couldn't come after me, I had to go to it. I had to look at this long and hard. I did, one day, climb those bazillion steps up to the top and I jumped off without killing myself. I became aware of my fear and saw it as a compass more than a barrier. (I did not know all this wisdom at the time, I was in the 3rd grade)

Fear can become a way to know what to do next, not an evil demon to be extinguished!  

When we deny our fear, we make it stronger.

When we reassure the voice in our head, that everything is going to be ok, we actually reinforce it.

Pushing back on fear doesn't make us brave and it doesn't make us fearless. Acknowledging fear and moving on is a very different approach, one that allows it to exist without strengthening it.

Life without fear doesn't last very long, you'll be run over by a bus (or someone one in the church) before you know it. The fearless person, on the other hand, sees the world as it is (fear included) and then makes smart (and brave) decisions.

Take the Step!

During a rock-climbing lesson, Dan Clark stops on the vertical incline, as if paralyzed.
He writes, "I could see an outcrop for my right foot, but no place where I could place my hands or left foot."
Yes, he felt stuck. Hopeless perhaps.
The instructor, not far from Dan on the face of the incline, tells him, "Take the step."
"Are you crazy?"
"Once you lift yourself up you may find something you can't see from where you stand."
"Well what happens if I don't find anything?" Dan asked.
"If you don't find anything, " the instructor says calmly, "fall back on the harness and try it again."

This story fills me with hope! At some level it also freaks me out, to fall back, as in...to let go. Of our expectations or our stuck way of seeing and thinking. It's a message that comes to us when we need it most, if we will but listen.

Take the step, give it a try, see what you can see from a new place. It's like at any given moment, we have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end! I mean, what's the worst thing that can happen? You fall back and try again!

Fear will keep us stuck if we let it. Once we see fear for what it truly is, a lie, we are able to take that step and see things from a different place. Sadly, this is where some churches live, stuck in the fear to take a step, any step, in any direction. We've always done it this way! (Still the words of a dying church) These are words of fear. I refuse to let fear have a grip on me! I know the truth and it set's me free, to take that step!

Fear

Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart.

It shrinks up our capacity to love.

It freezes up our power to give ourselves.

~ Thomas Merton

Fear is the show stopper! Think about it, what keeps us from being all we can be? We're afraid! We fear failing, not being liked or loved, not being enough or being too much. It paralyzes us from doing what God is calling us to do. One of the worst things about fear is it's contagious! We are able to spread fear faster than hope! That my friends, is flat out sad!

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hate leads to suffering.
Yoda

At times, I feel fear is the main tool of satan. I know he has more, but fear works so well with us. I want to share a story I read the other day from Sabbath Moment's.

There is a well-known experiment involving a group of monkeys, a ladder and bananas suspended from the ceiling. When the first monkey touched the ladder, the researchers hosed all the monkeys with cold water. (Let it be known right off the bat, I hate these experiments!) Soaked and confused, the monkeys tried to reach the bananas again, but whenever any one of them touched the ladder, all were punished. Soon enough, the monkeys learned the lesson: the ladder is taboo. The researcher then exchanged one of the experienced monkeys for a new one. As soon as he entered the room, the new monkey started towards the ladder. Before he could touch it, the other monkeys pulled him away. After enough thwarted attempts, the monkey abandoned his efforts.

The researchers then exchanged another monkey. After time, not one of the original monkeys remained. Yet the lesson endured: No monkey ever climbed the ladder. (Incidentally, if any of the monkeys had tried the ladder, they would have succeeded. Researchers did away with the water hose early on in the experiment.)

WOW! There are many things we don't try.

There are many ladders we don't climb. For any number of reasons.

Or we try for a while; and then we quit.

Or, we have been told, Don't try. You don't have what it takes.

That may put the kibosh on any enthusiasm in a world of never enough - be it beauty or faith or courage or success or passion. 

What have you been told not to try? What puts a kibosh on your enthusiasm? Does it all go back to fear? How do you feel about that?   

Fear!

You know when that feeling of unrest comes over you and you being to feel the anxious knots start to gather around you? What do you do? 

Maybe it's not so much unrest as it is restlessness, but is there really a difference between the two? I am finding that we all think we are the only ones going through such things. No one would understand what I'm going through, in fact, they will think I'm losing my mind! 

All of our fears, are not just our fears. People have been having those same fears for a long time now. People have been ignoring them and stuffing them down for a long time too. Staying busy is one of the best ways to push fear down. If I stay busy enough, I won't have time to think about being afraid! But then again, we all go to sleep, or at least try. Isn't that when our mind is the busiest, right when your trying to rest that busy body?! 

Here's a thought: Face your fear straight on. (I know that feeling, it's like something is trying to chock you from the inside of your body!) With ruthless moral honesty, and with God's grace, confront that fear, no matter how deep down it goes. Acknowledge it to yourself and to someone else. Some problems can never be solved until you confess them to others. It's the idea of bringing it out into the light. If we listen to the fear, and keep it locked deep down inside where no light can get it to, it will just grow and fester. Confess your fault one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. James 5:16 

It take courage to speak of our fears, it's exposing our underbellies, it's trusting in someone other than ourselves. Do you know what it brings about? Freedom. There really is nothing as sweet on the lips as freedom!