Skip to main content

Fearing God


              For over decade, I have wanted to take a 10 Day Silent Retreat.  I knew where I wanted to go.  I knew where I wanted to be.  I just couldn’t find the 10 days to get away from my busy work, mothering, responsibility life.  Well, the kids are grown and the stars aligned and this week I will follow my yearning to attend a 10-day Silent Retreat.
              I’ve read about others who have attended this retreat.  I have good friends who have gone, and had a wonderful experience.  I love Silent Retreats and look forward to them more than a trip to Hawaii.  Yet, the couple of weeks preceding the retreat I began to feel a little uneasy.  I began to question my preparedness for the retreat.  As I explored my soul more God helped me to identify that I was afraid.  I was afraid that God would not be enough.  I was afraid that I would feel miserable, rather than the bliss I had been anticipating.
              I know that sounds absurd.  But it is just the diabolical scheme the enemy of my soul would bring against me as a time like that.  What a sweet and amazing reality to recognize that the God who has been calling me to this retreat for a decade, is the One who helped me recognize what was happening to me.  Thomas Keating wrote: One of the chief factors that tend to destroy relationships among people and nations is the emotion of fear.  It also destroys the relationship between us and God.  To be afraid of God, or to be afraid of the other people makes us defensive.  In the case of God, we will try to stay as far away from him as our situation and the demands of respectability permit.  Ever since I discovered what was going on in my soul, I have received nothing but affirmation from God that I have no reason to fear.
              My little brush with fear, along with God’s personal and immediate response, has only served to increase my awareness of God’s goodness and compassion.  As I journey towards this unknown experience I grow grateful for my experience of fear.  Though evaluating my fear, I have come to realize that I have no earthly idea what awaits in the week ahead. 
Since then I’ve been back to thinking the impossible. Wouldn’t it be amazing if I came away from that experience full of the virtues of Christ?  I love to think that I could leave a retreat like in a state of being that I never sin again.  I don’t think that’s likely either.  That would be asking a lot of a retreat.
Wise Solomon offers a balanced focus between fear about who God is to fear in response to the holiness of God.  He writes in Ecclesiastes 5:1-5:
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. A dream comes when there are many cares, and many words mark the speech of a fool. When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it.
I will move forward spiritually.  I will not fear that God hasn’t brought me to this place for His reasons and for His purposes.  I go humbly aware that I have no idea what God will do on this retreat.  I will let my words and my expectations be few.  My vow of silence will be good for my soul whether I find it difficult or blissful.  I have absolutely nothing to fear.

Copyright © 2017.  Deborah R. Newman  teatimeforyousoul.com  All Rights Reserved.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Pilgrimage that Started with Tears

                Who would think I would shed tears deciding to set out on a wonderful journey that I have longed to take for many years?   Before I was ready to fully accept God’s invitation for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, I had to journey to a place of agreement between what my soul wanted and what the Lord wanted for me.   For years I have been declining opportunities to travel to Israel—not because I didn’t want to go but because I wanted to go with my husband by my side.   I know that God could have arranged that for me, but instead He asked me to accept that He wanted me to be willing to go and leave everything behind.   When I was asked to make a decision about going on a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, God gave me this verse in answer to my prayer -- Debi, observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are cr...
2 comments
Read more

The Effects of the Holy Spirit

The Effects of the Holy Spirit               Can you imagine that the very Spirit of God is given to humans who believe in God’s gift of salvation through Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection?  Just thinking about the Holy Spirit makes me realize that I can do better.  I am not left to my own resources when it comes to praying, having faith, obeying God, doing what He asks me to do.                 No one understands the depth of sin’s effect on a soul better than God.  Every action He takes has been to reduce the effect of evil that was unleashed into our world when sin was merged into His perfect universe.  We never saw it coming. Even Adam and Eve did not see what hit them.  God has counteracted with the effect of faith after sin by enabling sinners to be affected by His ho...
Post a Comment
Read more

Holy Saturday

Nothing is written about the events of Holy Saturday except Luke 23:56, “they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.” These few words speak volumes about our life with Christ.   What was it like for these ladies to rest on the Sabbath?   They had watched carefully, they knew how quickly Jesus’ body was laid in the grave. The men had brought spices and linens, but they had little time to properly anoint this most precious of all bodies.   As the women watched carefully, they made mental note of the supplies that would be necessary to complete this sacred act of burial as it should be. They spent the last few hours before sunset to prepare the spices for this holy act of reverence. The Sabbath signaled the time for rest.   I’m sure they didn’t feel like resting, but by complying out of obedience they were probably served by its benefits.   Their minds racing from the horror they had just witnessed, at best they could allow their bodies to rest and ...
Post a Comment
Read more