In my line of work people come in scared. Scared of symptoms......scared of the diagnosis.....scared of the doctor......scared of medicines.......scared of the unknown. This fear lots of times creates a bunch of other symptoms and anxiety. This fear drives people to do and say things they don't mean. Being in a ER is scary. Being in a hospital is scary. I remember when I was a kid and we would visit family in the hospital. I really didn't like being there. It was scary and creepy. I remember visiting my grandmother before she died and when we would get to her room, I would never be the first one to walk in. I would go in after my dad. He would usually be first and I would be last. My fear of seeing my grandmother worse than the day before was scary to me and my dad protected me in that if something would have been wrong he would have let us know. The same thing happened when my mother in law was in and out of the hospital. I would always go into her room after my husband, who I would graciously allow to go first. Fear of the unknown.
It's amazing how God uses things in our life to teach us lessons. Now, Working in a hospital....I no longer fear going into a room first.....or get creeped out by any of it. In fact most days I want to be there.....meeting new people and helping them is a blessing to me. It's amazing to me how even in childhood God uses situations to build who you will be as an adult.....without us even knowing.
We don't have to fear the unknown. Fear drives us to stay in our comfort zone. Our comfort zones seem to get more comfortable the more scared we get. I don't want to do this or that......or change this or that.....so I'll just stay here and it'll all be ok. Thing is.....either we can get on board with the changes thrown at us or we can stay comfortable and miss out. Miss out on blessing we might not otherwise get. Miss out on relationships......miss out on helping someone else.....miss out on being a light to a dark world......miss out on a lot.
Change is the only thing in this life that stays the same. Change is inevitable and we don't have to fear any of it. Look at it as an adventure.......and our God is the leader with all the leg work done. He has it all figured out so we don't have to. We can have peace instead of fear.
Isaiah 41:10 says.....Do not fear for I am with you......
And if He is with us we can be free of what scares us.
Fear can be crippling. I like watching old war movies and documentaries and i see how fear worked on some of those guys. I have also seen and experienced fear in my, whether it was me crawling through the snow with a shotgun full of teargas. To get a guy that had already shot another policeman in the face. Or, seeing new guys that i trained going to a high risk incidents and seeing them scared of what was going to happen.
ReplyDeleteHowever, fear can be a good thing as a friend of mine said about Matthew 7:21. Fear of not being what God wants us be or even fear of going to hell, should make us better at obeying God's commands. If there were no fear i doubt that even some of the best Christians would have started out on the right path.
Now for something that the pastor put his in his blog. We should want forgiveness, eternal life and salvation for God. I do want to glorify God because he has given me so much, but i certainly would be lying if i said i was not afraid of going to hell. He is right. Everything we do should be to glorify God. From praying, to trying to make disciples, to obeying him. It times things because i want to honor God as i should. However, when i sin i am surely afraid that i will pay for sinning against him.
Read 1 john 1:9......this is a go to verse for us and should comfort us when we sin. Practice this verse in your life and you will be just fine.
ReplyDeleteAlso.....I feel our God does want us to fear him out of respect, not be afraid of him in the way we are afraid of other things. He created us and knows us better than anyone. He knows you and your heart at all times. He knows you are trying to please Him. he knows your heart is sinful yet died for you anyway......for all of us. I hope to see you Sunday as i have some thugs that may help you. Praying for you tonight. You are an inspiration to me and I know our God is working in your life. :)