What If Your Fears Come to Pass?

Hope, what if your deepest fears come to pass?

Your deepest fears, the ones that prickle just beneath your skin, the ones that no matter how hard you try to quiet, still pound in time with your heartbeat? 

If your fears come to pass, does it mean that your life will turn from one of hope into one of despair, from one of meaning into one of meaninglessness?

If your fears come to pass, does it mean that you mistepped and God sits there smugly, telling you that you made your bed, now go lie in it?

If your fears come to pass, does it mean that God isn’t good?

That He doesn’t love you? 

You seem to think so.

The fear of the future is the beginning of wisdom. Isn’t that how the verse goes? Because logically, it makes sense. It’s wise to analyze all the possible outcomes before taking a step, right? To be sure that this decision won’t shatter your life, because if you misstep, then God certainly won’t meet you where you messed up. Isn’t that how the verse goes?

The fear of man is the beginning of wisdom. Isn’t that how the proverb goes? Because if you look at the evidence around you, at the novels and poems and Instagram posts, human rejection shatters hearts and minds and lives, but human love heals and validates and means you are precious. Isn’t that how the proverb goes?

Of course, you know you’re dead wrong because you’ve memorized the real verse, that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The truth lives in your mind, but the false proverbs with their human logic have snaked their way into your heart.    

I know the way you naturally think, the society you’ve grown up in. It’s an evidence-based, humanistic society, where truth only comes from a testable hypothesis, and citations and sources are demigods. I know you have a million of them, of these citations and sources that tell you fear is the wise and logical response. I know the pain you’ve endured, the rejection you lived, that your natural instinct is to self-protect and run rather than expose yourself to hurt all over again. 

But don’t forget this: a source can be beautifully written yet be completely false. A citation may be perfectly formatted but point back to a boldfaced lie. Evidence may be compelling until you find it’s been falsified.   

I want to tell you a story. 

It’s the story of King Hezekiah and the King of Assyria. 2 Kings 18:5-7 says that “Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses.”

Read further, and you’ll find that Hezekiah was far from perfect; he was just as broken and prone to sin as you, Hope, but he chose to trust God’s evidence over that of his attackers. 

To be sure, the King of Assyria’s men would’ve gotten an A+ in your English 101 class for their clear, concise argumentation supported by ample evidence.

“This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand. Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria…Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

The evidence was there: no other nation had been able to withstand the forces of Assyria; their gods hadn’t helped them, so how could Hezekiah’s God?

But Hezekiah could see the hole in the king’s argument because He knew the power and character of the one true God.

And he prayed:

“It is true, O Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by men’s hands. Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.” (2 Kings 19: 17-19). 

Hezekiah was able to identify the lie and refuse fear because he had confidence in God’s power. It was true that the Assyrians had defeated other nations. Statistically, they would probably conquer Hezekiah’s people as well. But Hezekiah knew that God is not a God of statistics, but of miracles. 

Hezekiah trusted in the Lord.

And the Lord defeated the Assyrians and saved his people. 

When your heart is fearful, Hope, you only see within the confines of 80 years, you only see the steady aging of a finite frame and the fears that come along with it, of aging, death, of unfulfilled dreams and lost loved ones, of the pain of cancer and broken relationships, of being abandoned or never being enough to be chosen in the first place. 

The fear is a festering bullet wound that you’re only putting a bandaid on when you read a quick verse but continue to live like “the fear of the future is the beginning of wisdom,” like God only helps those who help themselves, and like getting through your 80 years with minimal pain is what you should aspire to.

But, Hope, if you stop looking forward and instead look back, the fear will shrivel, because there are countless stories of God bringing you through the fire not to die, but to be refined, not because He didn’t love you, but to show you just how much he does. Remember the time, not even two years ago, when he walked with you into that greatest fear, the one where you were clutching your life so tightly, you were about to shatter it.

When your greatest fears came to pass, you thought you would crumble. You thought that the evidence of your worthlessness was damning and that the pain would weigh heavy forever. Your eyes were blurred by looking at human evidence, but the whole time he held your hand leading you, refining you, and finally cleansing your gritty eyes so you could see the brilliant colors of truth. 

You just met a woman who faced her greatest fear, betrayal and rejection and the crumbling of her family. As she began to tell the story, you expected bitterness, but instead, her eyes shone with strength. There was pain and there were questions, but there was also a defiant hope. A defiant hope that said God is still good even though her circumstances are not.

Some throw around the phrase “God’s best” as synonymous with getting everything you’ve wanted in this life, with your story being tied up as neatly as a Hallmark movie. A happy marriage, financial security, and healthy kids-this is what we often mean when we pray for “God’s best.” But following this theology, many believers before us didn’t experience “God’s best.”

Job lost seven children in one day.

Jeremiah preached the truth and was rejected.

Noah obeyed God and was ridiculed. 

And as we learn in Hebrews 11, “some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated-the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” 

Hope, what if during these 80 years your questions are not answered, or your dreams fulfilled?

If your goal is the Hallmark movie, then of course you’ll be disappointed, you’ll grow bitter, and you’ll doubt God’s goodness. 

But at your core, you know that’s not what you truly want. You know that to pray for a Hallmark ending is to pray for a shallow, self-centered existence. God has put His Spirit in you and that Spirit cries out for meaning and depth and to live the sacrificial love of the one whose name you bear. 

Jesus’ kingdom call may mean the death of your dreams, but as soon as you open your hands, he’ll fill them with dreams greater than what you’ve imagined. 

And when you unclench your fists and surrender, you’ll realize there’s no need to fear. 

Because Hope, Jesus is faithful and true. Perfect love casts out fear, and He loves you perfectly. You are strong and courageous not because of you, but because His blood beats in your veins, you’ve derived your name from Him and the fearlessness he showed when he went to the cross. Satan showed Him the evidence, how at 33 years young, He would suffer torture and death and  separation from His Father. But Jesus knew that in light of eternity, in light of the joy of uniting the broken people He loved with God, that Satan’s evidence was a mirage. So he chose to face that fear, and he died. 

With 3 days in the grave, the proof piled up even higher, it said that clearly He was not the Savior, but a mere man who had rebelled against the truth and gotten himself killed because of it. Even His closest friends believed the evidence because it was flawless, but the evidence only spanned 3 days, 3 days that dawned into victorious eternity anchored in love. 

Hope, when fear tangles in your chest and anxiety stunts your breath, remember this: God is good and faithful and has always been your loving defender. Fear grows when you forget His faithfulness, but retelling the stories where He showed His perfect love casts out fear. And already, He’s filling you with a courage you didn’t think possible, you’re beginning to see outside the confines of the 80 years on earth, and you’re opening your tightly clenched fists. And one day, when you’ve run your race, you’ll see how each broken thread of your story is woven beautifully into the tapestry of His glory and salvation. You will see the redemption of all the hurt and betrayal and sickness and death, daughter of God, and when you do, it will be breathtaking. 

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When You Have to Return from Narnia

About 91% of Jesus’ life was unseen, undocumented. His 3 year ministry is where we tend to focus, on the miracles, the parables, and of course, the greatest thing of all, the giving of His life in exchange for ours, the earth quaking, the temple veil torn, death embarrassed by limp muscles incapable of holding Him a minute longer than he would allow.

“Epic” and “awesome” are watered down words today, but they can both be used in their truest sense to describe the events of those 3 years, snowballing in momentum and culminating in the answer to humanity’s desperate question. It is in the epic and the awesome that we find the exclamation point at the end of the sentence He came to write, but we can’t forget this:  91% of Jesus’ life, the 30 years before the 3, was paced by the rhythms of the mundane, His movements not made holy by their visibility, but by the fact that it was Him acting. 

And for most of us, our lives are and will be much the same. We’ll have moments of visibility, chances to do “big” things, but regardless of the job we hold, the country we live in, or the platform we have, probably at least 91% is spent in the mundane: hitting snooze for the third time before a day filled with spreadsheets, e-mails, grocery shopping and getting ready to do it all over again.

I’ve been told many times that I’m “brave” for traveling alone, for striking out in a country that isn’t my own and diving head first into all the challenges and misadventures that come my way. And I have no doubt that He purposed me there for those times.

But bravery…I don’t think it’s that simple. 

Nearing the end of my senior year of college, I’d been waiting an eternity to hear whether I’d gotten the grant to Russia, 9 long months from application to final answer. 

And when I opened that long-awaited e-mail, a queasy shock shot through me. Alternate. I hadn’t gotten it. I was an alternate. 

In my mind, there was no way I could get bumped up to grantee. After all, who in their right mind would give up a chance to live by themselves for a year in the land of Stalin and Siberia?! [Sarcasm sign ;-)]

How I reacted revealed the state of my heart. I wasn’t just disappointed, I was devastated. I had staked all my hope for the future on getting a ticket to teach abroad, because of calling, yes, but also because life in that country I loved had always been full of adrenaline and newness and emotion.

Heart motives are so often a tangled mess of pure and impure, and one of those tangled threads was that Russia had always been an escape from a life in the U.S. where the mundane depressed me and I never felt like I quite fit in. In Russia, I felt like my truest self: these people, they were just as emotional and romantic as me, this language, it was so beautiful and ordered and intricate that I wanted to bathe in it, and in all the challenges, I was no longer Lucy Pevensie, but Queen Lucy the Valiant in this Narnia I had stepped into. 

Bravery, not so much. 

Later in the week, I got a new e-mail. Someone had declined the grant, and Russia was calling my name. I was saved, or so I thought. 

These people, they were just as emotional and romantic as me, this language, it was so beautiful and ordered and intricate that I wanted to bathe in it, and in these challenges, I was no longer Lucy Pevensie, but Queen Lucy the Valiant in this Narnia I had stepped into. 

This time though, my sixth in Russia, He gave me the reality check I needed. This time, I was there long enough for the adrenaline to actually wear off, and it was then that I began to learn the simple truth: life is life anywhere, and the mundane is not to be feared. I wrote: 

“Three months ago, I would have told you that freedom is synonymous with wandering, and that roots are synonymous with chains. I would have told you, if I really trusted you, that maybe this running away to Russia wasn’t as brave as it seemed, since I thought that steady was synonymous with stale and lifeless, and boring was synonymous with depression. That life, real, conscious, colorful life was synonymous with running into an adventure that could swallow me into purpose, where each day could be a story, quantifiably exciting, to be snatched and put in a snow globe, waiting to be shaken up and retold.”

I thought….that life, real, conscious, colorful life was synonymous with running into an adventure that could swallow me into purpose, where each day could be a story, quantifiably exciting, to be snatched and put in a snow globe, waiting to be shaken up and retold.”

And it was true, I was addicted to the misadventures I often found myself in, and I had the skewed view that my life wouldn’t count for Christ if it was quiet and steady and “average,” if a typical day didn’t include a harrowing act of bravery for Him. But it was here that He began to teach me that the biggest act of bravery for a temperament like mine is to be faithful in the mundane. Because when all I can see is the routine on the horizon, my tendency is to start to daydream, to disengage from the flesh and blood people in my life who need to see Christ in me and hear him through me in the meeting at work, at the checkout line, on a walk through Burnt Hills. 

This isn’t to say that the pull I feel to other parts of the world is not from Him; I believe it is. But at a time like this, when I find in myself a longing for rootedness but a simultaneous fear of it, I need to remember the 91%, the untold life of Jesus in the routine rhythms of a carpenter. I can’t mistake the mundane for wasted time, because a hidden heart submitted to God, waiting for directions from the Holy Spirit is as radical in His sight as jumping on a plane to the middle of nowhere. 

I’m not crazy about flashy proposals. For a number of reasons [I won’t give my 95 theses right now :-)], I can see myself getting angry if a man asked me to marry him at a baseball game or concert. Much more precious to me would be a proposal in the quiet, just between us, with no thought to spectators. Now, I can’t take this metaphor too far, because there are so many times when being audacious in public is exactly what we should do as Christ-followers. But when I think of how precious a private proposal would be to me, I can’t help but think that it reflects the heart of God when we do something for Him that no one else will ever see.

A hidden heart submitted to God, waiting for directions from the Holy Spirit is as radical in His sight as jumping on a plane to the middle of nowhere.

So for those of you in the midst of that 91%, take heart. Take heart that He will use you powerfully right where you are, in the daily rhythms of your job and family and community. Take heart that He sees the heart behind the actions, and that an unseen act done out of love for Him is precious in his sight. And take heart that your effectiveness in His kingdom is not measured by numbers and visibility, but by obedience and faith. 

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To Be Too Conscious

 “I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness — a real thorough-going illness.” –The Underground Man, Notes from the Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

There is truth in the words of the Underground Man; over-consciousness can drive us to despair, to depression, to step heavily through each day to the beat of Ecclesiastes’ moans of meaninglessness and futility.

There is truth in the words of the Underground Man, but they stop short of acknowledging that this “sickness” has the power to shake us from a zombie-like going through the motions, to push us to fix our eyes on God and eternity.

There are days that I am tempted to give in to the negative side of this “sickness,” when thoughts of life’s futility beckon me to despair. These are the days when I am content with blindness, choosing to scorn hope, not having faith that my immortal inclination in the face of death, death, death is the most human of states because it points to the truest truth.

I bite my lip as I examine the broad order of things, people scurrying to and fro like ants, building houses and advancing careers and endlessly consuming, unconscious that one misplaced step, one turn of the steering wheel could propel them into eternity. I see them distracting themselves from over-consciousness,

knowing that it will pierce them,

knowing it will kill them,

not realizing that the death of the meaningless will birth a life of meaning.

I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness- a real thorough-going illness.

I am told that I think too much, that life must be lived, that the order of things is the order of things. I am over-conscious, morbid, in constant awareness of my own mortality, of the mortality of others, of the insignificance of striving and ambition and trying to make one’s mark.

I long for meaning in a place where people seem set on ignoring meaning, where people seem content in pretending, in trying to force meaning into promotions and white picket fences.

I almost give into despair, then real meaning calls: his name is Christ, and I reach out in feeble faith.  Real meaning calls, and for now, no one on earth can squeeze my hand in understanding.  But the time that we hoard and coerce and try to stop is insignificant; I will blink and be seventy and blink again; the dream will have lived its life and I will wake up, rub my eyes, and finally see.

If over-consciousness is a sickness, then I wish this disease upon everyone, confident that its ache might direct them to the deeper cancer that needs to be purged to save their lives. Death and history chug along, and the unconscious walk off cliffs into hell with smiles on their faces. I know intimately that over-consciousness can lead to depression when it turns inward, when it narrows itself into the claustrophobia of self-consciousness.

But I know that an over-consciousness that looks outward to the infinite Creator is a vivid gift, filled with joy. Its sharpness tells me that mortality is a distortion of the original plan. Its depth tells me that we are not a mistake, but crafted in the image of God, each of us one of his poems. And its constant pulse tells me that there is purpose, and that purpose is to pursue a life that joyfully sings “to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

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