“What I always feared has happened to me. What I dreaded has come true.” Job 3:25, Tracy 8/11/09.
It is true, I had some fears. Fear used to be an active participant in my life. I welcomed it years ago as just who I was. Things made me scared. I accepted it as an obstacle I was destined to live with forever. I just figured with each part of good comes an equal part of bad and fear was that part which was sewn into the hem of my life. Something that couldn’t really be removed. It didn’t have to make me debilitated but I figured it would always be there, a thorn in my side.
I don’t know if you’ve been watching Biggest Loser this season. I catch bits and pieces of it but was mesmerized by it the other night. One of the participants was totally, physically capable of jumping up onto a step, but she could not overcome the obstacle. She tried and tried, always coming up short and unable to jump and land with both feet on top. Much of the episode focused on her attempt after failed attempt to jump! Her mind was stopping her from doing something so simple. I’ll admit I watched with judgment at first. Just jump on the darn step! Honestly, it was rather short, not very daunting and ANYONE should be able to jump up on it! I’m sure my children could, my parents, even the old lady that lived in the shoe could have jumped up onto the thing! But then my judgment turned to UNDERSTANDING! Fear, dread of the ‘what-ifs’, obstacles that were keeping me captive….ALL IN MY MIND…holding me back from doing what I was totally capable of doing. Being free from undercurrents of fear. It’s not the obstacles that keep us unable to overcome, it is our minds that stop us.
Which brings me back to Job. Job’s life sucked. ‘Have you considered my servant Job’. God knew Job’s heart, He knew his mind, He knew that Job would be a survivor, he would come through no matter what the task, and ALL glory would be to God. That is indeed the truth about Job, however, Job started his journey with a revelation that what he had always feared, what he had dreaded had come true.
I, too, have come to a similar revelation. There has been death to a dream, grief of what could be. I shared with Job this understanding in August. But alas, it was also the END to fear! With the death of my hearts hope, came life to my spirit! Freedom to live the life God had scripted from the beginning of time.
I had a change in my understanding. I no longer saw fear as an obstacle but as a stepping stone! No longer did my life have to have fear sown into its hem and weigh me down, but I had been created to be a conqueror, a woman of beauty, freedom and modesty, founded in Christ Alone!
From Matthew Henry’s Commentary:
“Nothing will make trouble easy so much as the testimony of our consciences for us, that, in some measure, we did our duty in a day of prosperity; and an expectation of trouble will make it sit the lighter when it comes. The less it is a surprise the less it is a terror.”
I don’t fear because I now understand that trouble will come, so I await the bumps, I anticipate the let downs, I know they will come, but the difference is that my mind is ready, my body is willing and my spirit is prepared. Fear turned to freedom.
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