:: to be set free ::

“Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer.”

-revelation 

Most of my years of being a Christian have been filled with fear. Fear of what God will allow to happen to me, fear of what He has in store for me, etc. I reckon that has a lot to do with the way I have viewed God-- kind of like someone waiting for the perfect moment to hit me over the head.  I have often been afraid to get my hopes about one thing because so often something bad would happen instead and I would be left admiring the pieces of my heart. I, of course would blame that on God, and it would be proof to me of how He just loves to see me get hurt. 

A couple years ago, God brought this to my attention in an incredibly real way. For the better part of a year I faced fear like I had never known before. I was very very close to turning my back on God. Something happened. I’m not sure what. Maybe it was the prayers of my friends and family, maybe it was the beauty of another person’s life. Whatever it was, I finally decided to take God up on what He was offering. 

He offered me love. True love. Love that is unfathomable. Love that will never change. Love that is unexplainable. Love that we thought we could only dream about. 

In First John it says that, “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. . . Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear.” If we fear it means that we haven’t yet experienced His perfect love. 

So basically what God wanted me to decide was this -- I could decide to truly trust His love, believe He really was everything He claimed to be or I could decide it was all a lie and walk away from Him. Thankfully I choose to believe Him, I don’t want to even imagine what my life would be like had I went the other way. 

After I made that decision I started to notice interesting things about verses relating to trust and fear. It says, “Let not your heart be troubled. . .  Trust in the Lord with all your heart. . . Do not fear. . . I will NOT fear. . . I KNOW who I have believed.” None of those things have a clause. It doesn’t say ‘only when you feel like it’, or ‘I’m having a good day today so I can say ____’ No it says. Don’t fear, no matter what you feel, don’t fear, trust my love.  It says very decisively,  I WILL NOT fear, no matter if the king wants me dead, and my world is falling apart, I will not fear. I know who my God is. 

It finally clicked. None of this was God’s fault. Sure He allowed stuff to happen but not because he didn’t love me. He allowed “bad” things to happen because He loved me. 

Most of it was my fault actually. How can you feel like God loves you if you don’t believe He loves you? How can you trust God when you are simply following your feelings? You can’t. You won’t. When your world is rocked that last thing on earth you want to do is trust someone else. When you feel hatred from everyone else it feels stupid to believe that Someone loves you. 

It’s a choice. 

The times when you need love the most or when you need to trust the most are the times when that kind of an action is the last thing you want to take. That’s what makes it so tough. But that kind of action is exactly what it takes to set you free. 

It’s kind of funny, when I sat down to write today this what not at all what I had in mind. The irony is that this is the very thing I needed to hear today. It’s where I find myself today. 

To trust or not to trust??

To stay in my jail or to be set free??