Lean into God

June 9th, 2013

Weather Report From Heaven: Sunny and bright, with an abundance of light and lots of singing and rejoicing.

Bible Verse of the Day: Psalm 43:1 " Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine." 
 
We live in a time and place where there is plenty of fear to go around. All one has to do is to open up a newspaper or turn on the news to get an instant feel for the how messed up our world is. The U.S.Government spying on their own citizenry and using the IRS to target people who disagree with their agenda is reminiscent of George Orwell's futuristic thriller 1984, but it is no longer the future, it is the present, and it is scary because it is happening right here in the U.S.A. There are wars and rumors of wars all over the Middle East. North Korea threatens the destruction of S. Korea, Japan and the U.S. on almost a regular basis now. Terrorists want to destroy the freedom that we enjoy as Americans, and they seem to be doing a good job at chipping away at our liberties in both subtle and overt ways.

We live in a broken world, that is desperate for the truth of what will make it all better and will help us deal with our fears. But the Truth is right before our eyes and our real internal freedom from all of our fears is right there alongside the Truth in Jesus Christ, who says in John 14:6 " I am the way, the truth and the life; No one can come to the Father except through me." The most important question we can ever ask ourselves in this lifetime is, do we believe Him? Do we believe that Jesus is who He said He was? Because if we believe Him, and we trust that in Him we have eternal life that can never be taken away from us, then that makes all of our other fears seem insignificant within the scope of that promise. Don't get me wrong, as humans we will struggle with fear because our nature is to want to control things and as we come to the stark realization there are so many things in this life that are beyond our control, our natural reaction is to become fearful. We can't control what is going on at our neighbors house, or in the guy's car next to us on the freeway or the rogue employee at the office who has had a bad fight with their spouse. But each of these people and situations has a chance to spill over directly into our lives and can have a tremendous effect on us and we can't stop it. A drunk driver next to us could suddenly swerve into our car and cause major damage or worse. A rogue employee can decide to take out their frustration by committing violence on innocent people and their is nothing we did to cause that, nor is there anything we can do to control that. Those types of thoughts about our ultimate lack of control can make us fearful.

But those are external events. What about our ability to control fear and remove anxiety from an internal perspective? Luckily, God has given us a road map of how we can lean into Him to find some real and everlasting internal peace amongst the chaos that is happening all around us. Prayer is the biggest tool that we have in our arsenal to alleviate our fears.  As a matter of fact, God promises us that prayer can directly lead to peace. In Philippians 4:6-7 it says " Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." Again, the question is do we believe it?

Another thing that we can do is to get our hearts right before the Lord. He promises to forgive us of our sins if we repent and turn to Him for forgiveness. For He alone can forgive our sins. We must realize that we are only as sick as our secrets. When we have nothing to hide, than we truly have nothing to fear. Often times, however, our initial reaction when we do something we are not proud of is to hide. We run away from God, rather than leaning into God to help us through the mess we have created. We try to justify our running away by saying things to ourselves like"what I did wasn't so bad compared to what this person does" or " no one got hurt as a result of what I did" or " I don't even think what I did was sinful," like somehow we get to play God and make judgements on what is sin and what isn't. But here is the real truth: We can't trick our souls! Our souls are the feedback mechanism God built into us to know when we do something wrong. Even little 1 year old babies have the ability to know when they do wrong. They usually let us know because they start to cry even before we have ever said anything about what they have done wrong! A dog slinks around the house when they know that they shouldn't have eaten the stuffing out of the chair. A drug addict even knows when they use that it is a bad choice, even though they may feel powerless to stop.

Even before I became a Christ follower, I knew right form wrong. I just didn't take time to stop and repent before God and ask for His forgiveness and guidance the next time the same situation occurred as I do now. Therefore I had never dealt  with the root problem, my sin, and that caused me to be fearful because I was hiding something from God ( or thought I was, not realizing that He already knows everything I HAVE EVER DONE OR WILL DO. ) I was trying to run from Him, afraid He was like an angry traffic cop behind a billboard just waiting to cast judgement upon me. Guilty He would surely say! I didn't know if I was ready or able to handle His harsh response. Little did I know at the time that " there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," as Romans 8;1 tells us. In fact, I know now that He alone can remove that heavy load of guilt that I was carrying on my back from my life of unrepentant sin. Not only is there no condemnation, but there is actually freedom and peace in the place where guilt and fear once roamed. In Matthew 11:28 Jesus says " Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavily burdened, and I WILL GIVE YOUR REST!" Rest not only for our bodies, but for our tired souls. Why would we ignore such a blessing?

God knew the desperation of our sinful guilt and resulting fear, and that it why after Jesus had died on the cross for forgiveness of our sins, He sent the Holy Spirit as an advocate for our lives to lead us in ways of real truth. He said in John 15:4-5 " Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. For I AM the vine and you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

How can we remain in Christ even though Jesus has left the physical earth for now? God sent the answer in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads us in righteousness and in the way everlasting. We must pray to stay connected to God. We must read the Bible, the living word of God, to stay connected to God. We must fellowship with others to stay connected to God. We must love others, the way He has loved us, to stay connected to God. We must forgive others, including ourselves, as He has forgiven us. We must stop running and learn to lean into God when we make mistakes and fall in our sin. He is not surprised when we sin. In  fact, I believe He is much more surprised when we don't! Repenting removes fear because it removes our desire to hide. It brings our weaknesses out into the open and it says, please God forgive me, for I am a weak and broken person and I am sorry.  I want to lean into you and your strength, mercy and grace. God works well with humility. Humility aligns us with the Spirit of His Son, the most humble person to ever walk the face of this earth. He will work to restore our brokenness, heal our wounds and remove our fear. The question is, will we let Him?