Facing Your Fear

Hey all, this again is not an official update of what is going on here, I hope to get on to you all soon, but I just wanted to share some more of what God has been challenging me with lately and maybe this will challenge you as well.

I don't really know how far this goes back in my life, or how far it goes back since I became a Christian even, but I feel like I have had a hard time in my life, especially in my walk with the Lord with dealing with my problems and the issues I deal with. It is so easy for myself, and I believe many Christians to see their problems and issues and instead of totally dealing with them just making themselves feel okay or feel happy and then never dealing with their problems. It is so easy for people to think because they feel happy to think that they have actually dealt with their problems when in reality, they are only scratching the surface at that time. There is a quote from C.S. Lewis that I go back to sometimes that really hits this on the head. Lewis writes in the Screwtape Letters, a fictional book that is basically one demon talking to another demon and teaching him the ways of how to deceive people, and the older of the two says this of humans and how to deceive them, "Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills. When they meant to ask Him for charity, let them, instead, start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves and not notice that this is what they are doing. When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave. When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling; and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment." What he is getting at here is that people, instead of for example, trying to be courageous in a situation, would rather just feel courageous. You see, for me this is a big one. I want to feel like I'm dealing with the issues in my life sometimes without actually dealing with them, because I pray for a few minutes and feel better, or sometimes not even trying to deal with the sin in my life. This is what God revealed to me a couple of nights ago.

Once a week, I try to take a least an hour of an evening off and just get alone with God and get away from my charts, get away from all that's going on in SBS and just get alone with God. This week, I ended up going to McDonalds to watch a sermon and decided about half way through the sermon that I should get out and pray because it had been a difficult week and although the sermon was great I just needed to get alone with God. I went out to the river to pray and to be completely honest, I was scared to bring my sin before God. This isn't the first time this has happened to me though. Very often when I am trying to deal with the sin in my heart I get scared. It wasn't until I was praying that night though that God made it very clear to me what I was afraid of. I'm not and none of us should be afraid to come to God if we truly love God and are living for Him. What I realized I was afraid of is not just dealing with the sin, whatever it is, what I was afraid of was afraid of what might result from dealing with it. I was afraid of the spiritual attack that may happen as a result.

I won't go into detail, you can ask me if you want to know more, but part of the reason for this goes back to about two years ago now. (Sorry for going back and forth so much) A couple years ago I saw some really deep spiritually dark stuff with someone I had been semi-close with in the past and how this person was effected spiritually. It was by far probably the scariest thing I had ever seen. Ever since then, although God has dealt with it, I don't think I've totally gotten over that fear of being found out or some of the same things happening in my life or at least some other spiritual attack. (again, I'm sorry this is vague and not totally explanatory, but I'm just trying to be careful here). Anyways, I didn't really realize that it was a traumatic event for me until months later while I was doing DTS outreach.

Coming back to this event now, I realized that a great part of the reason that I struggled was not just that event specifically, although it did have a lot to do with why I don't want to deal with problems that arise, but I was just scared to deal with them because I was afraid of what would come up or come out as I was dealing with them. But as I was praying, I really feel like God was present and revealing to me just how big he was. Ephesians 1 talks about two very important things. God's immeasurable power toward believers along with his immeasurable grace. If he is immeasurably powerful and immeasurably great, than there is no fear or spiritual attack that can win when we come to him. His grace and his power toward those who believe is infinite and without measure.

My challenge to you, as well as myself. If you are walking with the Lord, deal with these things. Don't be like me in this area and make yourself feel better about where you are without actually dealing with sin, or making it better for a time. Come to Jesus. Without condemnation, without fear. If you are his child, you can approach the throne of grace with confidence and without fear because you are his. There is no power of hell that can pluck you from his hands. So come to him, the great physician, and let him bring the healing to your heart. He will do it, all you have to do is come to him.

I believe! Help my unbelief!

Hey all, I just wanted to write something less about updating you and more about something I feel like God is doing in my heart and is something important for all of us to wrestle with if it is going on in our lives. I feel like something I have struggled with even since coming to do SBS, maybe even more than just about any other time in my life is unbelief. There is this wrestling within me of the reality of God. I have seen him speak to me, I have experienced his reality in my life on many occasions, but so often, it is difficult to believe. In Mark 9 there is a story of a man whose son has an unclean spirit. The man comes to Jesus and begs him to heal his son, the man tells Jesus, if you can do this, you should heal him. Jesus almost sarcastically seems to say 'if you can?' Jesus says that all things are possible for the one who believes. The man immediately cries out to Jesus, I believe; help my unbelief! I often feel like that man. I can very often feel like this man. Part of the reason I share this is because I want to be open with you all, but there is another point to this also. For a long time in my life, I feel like I have struggled to really commit to anything. If it was short term, maybe I'll commit or if it doesn't take a lot of my time, but it is something that I really haven't done well in. To give you an idea, as most of you know, the first school I did was DTS or Discipleship Training School. The school I attended was about 5 months long. It took me over six months to finally fully commit to doing the school It took me longer to commit to the school than the school itself took. I began thinking about doing DTS in September or October, I didn't commit until June of the following year. I share this because as most of you know, I am at another juncture in my life at this point in time. I began to pray about what was next and seek God and I never really heard anything from God so I took the next logical step and just figured, hey, I'll just choose to move back to Fargo and then I'll go from there, if I end up back in Taiwan, I end up back in Taiwan. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that every time we make a decision in life there always has to be this clear plan laid out, but looking back, I feel like I was just doing what I wanted and felt comfortable with it and it fit into my plans. Now, I don't know what I will be doing come the time to go back to the States, I don't know for sure where I'm going to live and what exactly I'm going to do, but I have realized that I think part of the reason I have not made the decision is because the option I wanted to do was the comfortable option. If nothing else worked out I had a safety net and I feel like much of it boils down to unbelief in my heart that God is really here, that he really is who he says he is, and that he will really do what he says he is going to do.

The reality is, I, and we all need to be seeking God's heart for us and be willing to do what he has called us to do, even if it is not popular with the people around us. If God has called us to something, we need to do it, no matter how difficult it seems or how contrary to what the rest of the world is telling us, even sometimes members of the church. I tell you this to share with you from my own life and to share with you some of the struggles that I am going through, but I also tell you this to tell you what I believe to be the root often is of not stepping out in faith to do what God has called us to do, and I think it boils down to unbelief in many cases. Unbelief that Jesus still really still speaks to us. Unbelief that he will call us out of our comfortable plans for our own lives. In my case even sometimes, unbelief that He's even here even after the incredible things I have seen him do in my life as well as in the lives of others. As Christians, we can't settle for just our lukewarm lives. We can't settle for living in stagnance. We need to be people who walk boldly knowing that God does speak to us and as we see and know that our God lives, that our God is with us and he will guide us every step of the way, we will be obedient to walk as he is calling us to walk and do what he is calling us to do and we are not to deal with our unbelief by trying harder. We are to cry out to Jesus as the man in that story in Mark 9 did. We need to cry out to Jesus and tell him I believe! Help my unbelief!