Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.
Genesis 15:1
‘What is your greatest fear?’
This was a question posed to me during leadership training at the beginning of camp, in a session where we were asked to open up to one another, to be real. I started to answer by saying that it was not being able to guide people with the right words, but quickly added to it as I realized it was deeper than that – that, really, my deepest fear is not being there for people I care about when they need someone. Missing the phone call for help, being too busy to notice someone not calling out when they need to be, not being someone they’re comfortable opening up to. Going on this trip is more than leaving a career or comforts behind, it’s taking all the relationships that I have – my family, my friends, the youth I lead, watching my nephew grow up, being the confidante, the advisor, or the strong shoulder – and leaving that entire identity behind too. I’ll still be their friend, their brother, their son, their youth leader, but I won’t be here with my cell phone on 24 hours a day, or on MSN to chat through life’s ups and downs, or to be the arms that comfort when it all falls apart. Leaving stuff behind, stepping into unknown situations, new cultures – that’s all comparitively easy for me. Leaving relationships and not being here for people? That wrenches my insides around and makes my hands a little shaky.
We all fear things, and I think most fears can be summed up in a question of ‘what if’ – so many common ones come to mind. What if I tell them how I feel and they break my heart? What if I take this job and it doesn’t work out? What if my plane crashes? What if I pray for this person to be healed and nothing happens? What if I don’t say the right words? What if I’m not good enough at this, or for this, or just not good enough? What if I fail?
I can’t count how many times I’ve simply not acted because of those questions. All of us have. Especially on this race, and with this team, we go through a lot of fear because we face so many things we’ve never faced, leave so many things behind, and the hardest of which to leave is ourselves. Our pasts. Our insecurities. Our weaknesses. And that makes us ask a lot of ‘what if’ questions. One night during training we were kind of on the subject and Ben (one of the training camp leaders) shot back with something that hit home for all of us – What if we go out and are amazing? What if our trust is returned ten fold? What if we show the world what Christ’s love truly is and change it all? What if we step out in faith and people are healed, the blind see, and the chains that bind entire nations are broken? What if the words I speak are exactly what someone needs to hear? What if I succeed? What if I trusted God, as He has trusted me? What if who you are is EXACTLY who God wants? What if my actions change lives?
God has promised us all the authority under heaven, over sickness, demons, and even death itself, but I have let my doubts, my fears, and my insecurities rob me of God’s gifts on so many occassions. I’ve heard it stated that the bible speaks against fear 365 times from Genesis to Revelation, one for every day of the year. It’s not an exact count, some say more, depending on how you look at the translations, but what is fact is that this kind of fear is spoken against more times in the bible than the command to love is given. And we know that the greatest commandment IS to love! So how badly does God want us to live in Him, and NOT in fear? How much does He want us to listen to His voice, and not the lies of the enemy or our own flesh? And how faithful and understanding is He to have repeated His assurance that I need not fear even more times than He asks me to carry out His greatest commandment of all, to know that I need that reminder oh so very often?
More than faithful enough to be there for my family and friends, my students and my peers, because really, it’s not me that’s here for them in the first place. It’s always been Him, through me sometimes, through others the rest of the time, and He will not leave them, no matter what may come.
He is our shield, and our VERY great reward.
