Of Fear and Other Hindrances

A Journal Extract

I sense the Lord saying, “Move forward! In fact, charge forward with confidence. Don’t move forward gingerly or hesitantly but go forward trusting that I have gone ahead of you.”

I sense the Lord encouraging me to dare to hope again, to dare to trust. It’s like He was showing me that in some areas of my life I remain detached because I don’t want to hope and then end up being disappointed again. This even affects my prayer life. It’s like I am hedging my bets. “Praying small” but not placing too much hope in the area in order to avoid being let down. That’s faithless prayer. The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God.

God’s role is to protect us, our hearts. In trying to protect ourselves, not only are we usurping God and His sovereign position in our lives, we are building a wall around our hearts which also acts as a barrier between Him and us. What this self-protection serves to do then is to break our connection between ourselves and our loving protecting Father.

By all means, we must be wise. That is however different from trying to protect ourselves. Self-protection is rooted in fear which we know is the opposite of love.

And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face Him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. (1 John 4:17)

Fear is such a consuming and debilitating emotion. It stops us from being who we truly are and doing all what God has called us to do. It builds a wall between us and our destinies.

I see a picture of a person surrounded by a wall of fear. They break down a part of the wall but not all of it. Because of the presence of the partial wall, they are forced to use a longer more circuitous route to their destination. The partial wall prevents them from simply moving forward in their desired direction. Without completely bringing down the wall, they are limited to exiting the enclosure through the section where there is an opening. All too often, this opening is not even in the direction they are headed. They must therefore walk around the wall to get back on track, losing time and energy in the process.

I sense the Lord saying that I should not allow fear to dictate my strategy but love.

I see waves of love washing over the wall of fear and breaking parts of it down. I sense that if I stay in the presence of God long enough and allow His waves of love to wash over me, the wall will be brought down completely.

God doesn’t like anything blocking my connection with Him. He wants unfettered access to every area of my heart and life.

When we talk about yielding and surrendering, sometimes it is simply about us handing over our fears to Him. Sometimes it is handing over lies we have come to believe – perverted images of Him, of ourselves, of others. It’s handing over faulty mindsets.

As we remain in His presence, He will shine His torch on the areas He wants to deal with. Thank God for the Holy Spirit who is always there; ready, willing and able to help us to deal with the areas that need attention, if we let Him.

Sometimes surrendering is allowing Him to remove the thorns wedged in our hearts. In some cases, we have had the thorns embedded in our hearts for so long we are scared that removing even one of them will leave a gaping hole in our hearts through which blood will come gushing out, causing further pain. The Lord wants us to trust Him and His ability to not just remove the thorn with care, but to heal the wounded area before any further damage is done.

The heart is the seat of our lives. The Lord very much loves our hearts and cares about the state it’s in. Jesus came to bind up our broken hearts. That’s what He desires to do, if we would just let Him.

I see a picture of a person on an operating table. Instead of allowing the surgeon to operate on their heart they are fighting off the surgeon. Trying to resist the much-needed operation, pushing the surgeon’s hands away, yanking out the tubes, trying to jump off the operating table and make a run for it.

Fear tinged with distrust…

Where the Lord thought He could operate with just the use of a local anaesthetic we leave Him with no choice but to put us under general anaesthetic with circumstances that constrain our ability to fight His healing work.

Many years ago, I heard a statement that stuck with me. The Lord loves us just the way we are but loves us too much to leave us that way.

May each one of us allow the Lord to do His healing work in our hearts and in our lives. After all, Christ came, died, and rose again to bring life to every area of our lives.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3).

Reflections

• Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the walls of fear around your heart.
• Ask Him to reveal to you how those walls got built.
• Forgive whoever may have been involved.
• Ask the Lord for His waves of love to wash over your heart and bring down the walls of fear.
• Ask Jesus to bind every wounded part of your heart.
• Ask the Lord what truth He wants to tell you today.

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