fear not!

I’m usually excited at the turn of a new year. Two of my favorite times of the year are September and January. September, because school is starting and routine is back after the summer hiatus. Even though it’s been a while since I have gone to school, I still like to buy new office supplies in the fall. There’s nothing like getting a package of brand-new pencils, and I don’t mean those mechanical pencils… I mean the real wooden, Number 2 pencils… and there’s something therapeutic about sharpening them to their sharpest point (OK, I’m weird). Similarly, I enjoy January because it is the start of the New Year… new beginnings… resolutions and fresh starts. However, this year was different. I was dreading the turn of 2007, and my stomach still churns when I think of all the change that is going to take place this year. While I know I am making the right decision to continue my education at Columbia International University, it is overwhelming to think about leaving my job and church, and the people I have come to love. As I was talking to my boss about my future aspirations and decisions, all of the sudden I was stricken with fear and doubts. No one around me is filling my head with these fears. If anything, it’s just the opposite where they are telling me I can accomplish probably more than I really can. But fears and doubts are what I have been struggling with lately… What if I fail? What if I am miserable at CIU? What if no one likes me? What if, what if, what if… To be honest, these thoughts and fears have been paralyzing. I have been trying to pray through them, but my prayer life has been paralyzed. I have tried to talk to friends about it, but again… paralyzed by my thoughts and fears.

I received my brother and sister-in-law’s prayer letter today, and Karen shared how she has struggled with fear and doubt in their new ministry in Paraguay. She mentioned fear is a lack of trust and when we let it creep in our lives, it consumes us to the point where we lose perspective and our sight of God. I realized then that recently as I’ve allowed the fear and doubt creep in my life, my focus obviously, is completely on myself and no longer is it on God or on the things of God. When fear is in my life, I am blinded and it is impossible for me to see the work God is calling me to do. He has been reminding me throughout the day today to not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself (Matthew 6). He still has work for me to do here at “home”. He has put people in my life who need a Savior, and I need to stay focused on that and not allow the doubt and fear of the future get in the way of what He wants me to do today. And when tomorrow does come, I have no doubt that He will continue to show me where He wants me to be. I will be able to enjoy ministry and life not because of where I live, work or go to church, but because I will be serving Him.

I’ve been reading a lot of Paul’s letters lately, and the one theme that seems to call out to me is that no matter what circumstance he was in… whether he was preaching freely or in prison chains, he was content because he had the right perspective. He wanted to know Christ more, and he never lost sight that his mission in life was to preach the gospel so that others would come to know Christ personally. Oh, may I be like Paul…

“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” --Philippians 3:7-14