gods of fear

My mind has been pondering this issue of fear, false gods and the glory of God. It is becoming more and more clear how anything that I allow to dwell in my mind or heart that makes me afraid empowers an idol within me and ends up controlling me.

Realizing this is an undeniable truth, I start to face one by one some of the fears that my mind naturally avoids and tries not to think about. With the presence of God and resting in His peace, I am able to face these fears head-on without being intimidated as I usually am. They may or may not leave immediately – that is not a prerequisite for facing them. That is God's job and He is well up to doing what He does. What He wants is my willingness and cooperation to face these with Him and let Him explain and expose them while I agree with His revelations to me.

As I remember the principles I learned from Theophostic ministry, this is the process of letting God take me to the deepest roots of my problems and pain, exposing the embedded lies that have kept that dysfunction in place for so long, and then asking God to directly speak His truth into that memory which expels the lie and implants healing joy in its place. Applying this ministry to my own life has been slow in coming but it is one of God's ways of maturing me and preparing me for fuller use for Him.

As I lay in bed this morning I focused on a few of my fears and asked God to address them. I thought of a man whom I have been afraid of all my life and who I am very careful not to know about this blog site. I know if he were to read my thoughts as I share them here he would launch an attack on me and my beliefs that would be overwhelmingly painful to my heart. So I have simply been very careful to warn others who know him not to know about this. I feel that I simply don't have the stomach for that much pain right now.

God began to point out to me this morning that while it may not be healthy for him or me for him to read these things right now, my life-long fear of him is an internal idol that is inhibiting God's power in my life. If my God is not much larger and more capable and protective of me than this man's threat to my peace, then I am actually worshiping him as a threat to me more than I am trusting God to keep me in peace. I don't want to live like that any longer. Father, I choose to trust in your protection, your compassion, your heart for me more than the power of this fear that has kept me in bondage all my life. Reveal yourself to me and your real feelings about me more clearly to dispel the darkness of this fear and break its spell over me with your love.

I think of the threatening letters I have received over the years from certain entities that have often filled me with so much fear that at times I could not eat or sleep. God has used many of those times to teach me the power of turning my focus totally on Him and choosing to fill my mind with His presence until the fear was beaten back and I could feel “normal” again. It is something few people can understand or discuss intelligently with me without condemning me so it has mostly been a very private battle for me. It has forced me to repeatedly search my heart and review my past decisions that have brought me to this place and I repeatedly put in back into God's hands and choose to trust Him with my life and well-being. It certainly has been a strong growing experience for me and has made me unique from most people around me. But it has forced me to practice trust and be real with God when I cannot see light in front of me.

This fear too, tries to assert idol powers over my soul and my life. I can see how most people around me are blindly beholden to its fierce control in their lives and it influences everything they do. That, however, is not for me to judge in any way. I am only responsible for my decisions and that is plenty for me. This too I keep putting into His hands and asking for the “fear of the Lord” to be greater than my fear of this hideous power. I am a child of God and nothing can touch me without His permission.

I thought about my fears of what people think or say about me. It is amazing how much that fear really affects me and exposes how much I still derive my feelings of worth and identity from those around me. Intellectually I know that all of that should come from God alone, but as I can see in my careful management of appearances I am still unduly controlled by this god of fear. I want to be healed of this affliction and become a different man as God has declared I am to be.

Sometimes lately I have had pangs of fear about putting all these musings out for anyone in the world to read. I know I am setting myself up for potential “disaster” and sometimes I think it would be wiser to pull everything off the site and go back to the “safety” of hiding all my feelings within me. I feel this even though I have not yet received one negative comment about anything I have written so far. That shows how much this fear is rooted internally and wants to control my destiny and relationships.

These false gods can never be convinced to change their minds and be converted. They cannot be reasoned with and will not compromise. They only relief from their domination in my soul is expulsion and replacement with total submersion in truth and the Spirit of Truth.

As I was reading this morning I came across reference to this verse and wondered about its relevance to what I have been thinking about. “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.” (2 Corinthians 4:17 NAS95) I looked up the word “weight” in the original Greek and saw that it also means abundance. I felt impressed that this glory and its abundance is being produced by God's work of removing the false gods and their control in my heart which allows His glory to be reflected more accurately through me. The more fully I focus on God's glory, on living to benefit His reputation, the more these dark areas of my life will be exposed to the light and will release their stranglehold on me.

I am reminded again of Ezekiel 36:25-28. "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God."