clipped Wings.

"Make my mind free from fear.

You know I can't do it on my own.

The way is high,

but we could fly over...

when you heal our wings."

Joyful's Wings.

Meet Joyful Miller...some few years ago. Her dad, Josh, would throw her up so high you'd think any baby would scream with terror. But no...she would laugh. Again and again he'd throw her. And any time the slightest look of fear would come over her while soaring in the sky, I swear she'd look down at her dad, arms outstretched ready to catch her, and she'd get giddy and giggle. Funny... so often fear is accompanied with a release of laughter shortly after we realize that the fear is only in our mind.

I've been thinking about fear a lot lately. The Fear of God versus the fear of man, fear of the unknown, fear of heights, fear of failing, fear of being rejected, fear of spiders, fear of losing someone we love, fear of________. Fill in your blank. Sometimes mine are too many to count. But when I get down to the bottom, underneath the fear itself, I find one thing that is very true. For those of us strongly led by fear, we fear one thing the most. 


Bottom line: we fear not being in control.


If we fear man, we can't control how he views us and we want him to view us well, don't we? We want to be the favorite. We want to be liked. And we want to be liked a lot. So we focus on man.


If we fear the unknown, we can't control what will happen to us, now can we? So we focus on the unknown.

If we fear heights, somehow we can't control our own safety- with our feet firmly footed on the solid ground. So we focus on the height.


If we fear failing, we realize we aren't in control of how some things will turn out- whether it be by way of our own decisions (poorly chosen or not), we can't control all the circumstances that contribute to our so called "failing" and we hate that, don't we? We don't want to fail. We want to thrive and we want to be sure that we will because the thought of failing at something or failing someone is too difficult to bear. So we fear it. And we focus on the failing.


If we fear being rejected or losing someone we love, we realize we can't control other people. We can't control whether they'll stay or go, like us, love us, or leave us. So we focus on the rejection and the losing.


What I find so interesting is that when we focus on the fear, what are we really focusing on? We are focusing on the SELF. The "me" factor. We are exerting all our man-made energy into what will happen to us, if…


Fears revolve the world around us. It sounds something like, “What about me?”


Beneath so many of our fears is the ugly, self-preservation root of control. It's a tricky root because it's the kind of root from a tree that kills. And it grows the "fruit" of destruction and division. Just look at Adam and Eve. It's the kind of root that robs us of Joy, risk, and True Love. (Not the love in movies, that isn't love nor is it real). It's the kind of root that suffocates us from our God given freedom to breathe in the air of courage...and thus, life itself.


And what's worse is we let this root take over. We allow it to grow and fester until we're so driven by fear, we're blinded by it. The veil of fear has come over our very eyes and almost every choice we make falls victim to it. We let it take over the Good roots; the kind that grow the real, life-giving, love inspiring Fruit in our lives and before we know it, our fruit is no longer fruit that can be used. It's rotten, it's old, and it's covered in fear.

We are known by our fruit. What is yours?

And then, to top it all off, this root of self-preservation shames us. Remember Adam? When God called to him, what did he say? "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."


I was afraid because I was naked so I hid.


Look at the sequence here: Fear. Shame. Hide. 
(And what's beneath all of that?  PRIDE.  But that's a biggie and that's for another day.)


Why did Eve (AND Adam, thank you very much!) eat from the fruit of the tree in the first place? To be like God. To see the world as he sees it. They wanted to know because they too, wanted to be in-control. They wanted to see it ALL.  Even when God told them no, they didn't listen nor did they believe that he had a good purpose for it.  "They knew best."  All of the theological discussions that can be incurred from such a topic I'm not going to discuss here. I'm not a Bible scholar but one thing I know for certain, they wanted to be like God. Period. And when we fear, so do we.


But we aren't God. We can't be. So why do we keep trying so hard?


When our fear gets covered in shame, just like with Adam and Eve, we're immediately separated from Freedom.


(Sidenote: Every time I hear, write, or say the word Freedom I think of Mel Gibson in Braveheart yelling out "Freeeeeeeeedom" as he heads into battle. THAT is the kind of Freedom we're talking about here. Freedom always comes with a fight. ALWAYS. And it's a visceral, physical, emotional, spiritual "thing" that has to consume every fiber and cell of your soul. You have to shout it out, want it BAD, cling to God HARD, and fight with a fervor and passion and courage or else you won't even come close to it).


This shame of ours is so often riddled with self-doubt. We doubt all that we are as Children of God so we doubt that he is for our good. We doubt the power in which we were Created in him to carry our Cross with Joy from one day to the next. (So instead, many of us drop the Cross and do our own thing because carrying it is just too scary). We doubt our vocation, our direction, our worth, our identity; we even doubt the people we choose to love, and worst of all we doubt that we are loved beneath all the shame and fear.


We can't experience the Love of the Father- or the love of anyone else- because our fear has told us to stay in control and our shame has kept us there. So what comes after shame? Hiding. We hide, just like Adam and Eve. We hide because when we try to be God (when that is only his place and his character) we grow afraid. So we hide like cowards behind masks, we hide behind walls we build to keep us safe from any perceived emotional and/or physical threats, we hide behind our own self-made "safety," we hide from Love, we hide inside our locked up heart and swallow the key because when we look ahead, we don't picture God with us because we're led by fear. And with eyes and imaginings of fear, we're all alone. Abandoned. Failing. Falling...


straight..
to...
the...
ground.


We can’t have that. So we take ourselves out of the game and out of the fight. We aren’t yelling out “Freedom!” No, no…we’re running fast in the other direction away from the battle, away from our Cross... away from what is truly Life.


Fear clips our Wings. And for a lot of us, it cuts them clear off.  So what do we do?  We try to "conquer" the fear on our own because fear tells us to look out for ourself.  (Pride)  But our futile conquering never looks much like conquering because we can't do it alone, hiding and ashamed.  We just weren't made to...


All this fear and shame keeps our focus on ourselves- our safety and well being (gosh, we’re self absorbed!) that there’s no way we can imagine a BIG and ALMIGHTY God. 

El Shaddai. 

"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." Psalm 91:1.


But we don’t hide under that God do we? We hide under the “god” (little g) that we create. Ourselves.


Do we believe in that Almighty, El Shaddai God? The kind that nothing is impossible for? The kind that shows up every time even when we don’t feel him there? The kind that delivers us from fear? The kind that brings freedom and our truest hearts’ desire? The kind that shows us what real love is- not the kind we think we should have because of what the world and our belief system has shown us. The kind that breaks down our walls?


Sure, maybe we have the courage to risk our body through some physical struggle, or we risk our finances to grow our business, or we risk our job security by quitting to find another, or we risk moving to a new city… but do we have the courage to risk our heart? To give it to God and give him all the authority, power, and control to guide us into the places and people where he would have us serve, love, and live…And do we give it over freely (and not take it back), and do we respond to what he shows us about our fears and self-focus.

Do we let him transform us, by whatever means possible, facing our deepest fears?  Are we even willing to go that deep?

It always comes down to matters of the heart. Always. And we’re fearful to "risk" the heart to God because we know, as Jesus has shown us, it costs us something.


But when it comes down to it,  we were created first and foremost to Fear God ONLY. The Fear of God takes our focus off of self and onto HIM.  The Almighty, the All-Powerful, Creator, Deliverer, King, Shelter, Most-High, Beginning and End, Provider, and Lover of Souls.


The Fear of God connects us back to The Truth and takes our imaginings away from a fearful life that doesn’t picture him with us and redirects our eyes onto a God that never leaves and never forsakes us.  Your fears will never leave so long as you stay focused on yourself.  And fears will always tempt you to focus on yourself.  


The cure for your fears isn’t you. It isn’t safety. And it isn’t about what you can control. Because when we Fear God, we experience how much we’re loved because God is Love. And when we taste THAT kind of Love, we realize that we are more than conquerors through him who loves us. That kind of love can withstand and endure ANYTHING because it focuses, praises, and reveres a God who is El Shaddai. That kind of Love can conquer any fear. That kind of love heals our wings.


The Fear of God…to be continued.

(In a proceeding blog post, I will talk more on the Fear of God because the power of HIM absolutely fascinates me).