Day 17 - Issue 22
Genesis 32:24 NLT
'This left Jacob all alone in the camp.'
Fear is isolating. Jacob finds himself alone and must face his inner fears. Fear is isolating because we experience the weight of our nightmare and no one can live in our shoes. While others may empathise and we sense their love and support, fear is my own battle and one I must navigate very personally. There is the fear in confronting its source as well as the harsh reality that there are no alternative options left to me.
I can, of course, create diversions in an attempt to avoid my deepest fears. Yet a diversion is only ever a delay, a postponement, in facing an unavoidable reality. God’s intention is always that I grow through my fears, for maturity is born walking on the path of my own foreboding.
Fear robs me of my inner peace. It consumes every ounce of my thinking capacity. It crushes my emotions. In fact, it dominates my skyline so that I can see nothing other than my fear and my own imagined outcomes. Fear diminishes me as a person and forces my hand into making choices that I grow to regret because they are framed around the fear itself.
Childhood experience with dentists convinced me that as an adult avoiding dentists was the best way to manage my fear. However, 16 years of avoidance merely ensured that I had to return, fear increased and well-established, and endure complex and painful dental work to pay for my failing dental hygiene. I discovered that my fears were related to a bad dentist and I had made a resolution based on a partial truth. Yes, there are bad dentists, but not all dentists are bad.
Here we discover one aspect of our uniqueness in God. While there are many commonalities in our journey with God, God has a unique road for each of us to tread. God’s purpose is that our friendship with the divine grows and that my unique fractures are addressed in ways only God understands. There are no generic solutions to Christian discipleship, only bespoke ones.
QUESTION: Which fears is God wanting to confront in you?
PRAYER: Lord, you said so often to not be afraid; help me to place my hope in you.
