Overcome
Think of the strongest person you know. Maybe it's your mom. Maybe it's an older sibling or a close friend. Maybe it's yourself. Maybe you're the parent or older siblings. Do you feel strong?
As the oldest of four kids, I know it's a hard label to live up to. There seem to be some unspoken rules sometimes, rules like "Watch out for the younger ones" and "Be a good example." And I'm not saying that's a bad thing; sometimes it's just awfully hard.
For me, it's been especially hard the last few days.
Some things have been going on in my life and I'm still trying to understand what all is happening. But the long and short of it is this: I'm fearful. Not the "there's a monster under my bed!" scared or the familiar "sharks and spiders" scared. No, this is different.
Fear is... a monster. There's really no other word for it. Given enough time it will leak out of your mind and shoot its tendrils down into your heart. And from your heart it'll spread under your skin until it's impossible to get away from it. Everywhere you turn you see your worst enemies. You see phantom shadows of guilt, pain, and terror that surround you and wrap you up until you can hardly breathe.
Some of you know what I mean. It's crippling, isn't it?
I had an experience a few weeks ago that I've blown way out of proportion. I look over my shoulder all the time and can't stop thinking about it. But the past few days I've really been struggling, and last night I couldn't sleep. I felt like I was suffocating under a blanket of fear and doubt that laughed at me every time I closed my eyes. I had let this one fear grow, fed it scraps under the table, pet it when no one was looking, and now it's ginormous.
Not only that, but I have let it swallow up my entire life in its shadow.
It's a struggle just getting words on a page as I write this Thursday morning. My novel is collecting dust because I doubt the quality of my writing. Will it be good enough? Will I ever get published? Do my words really matter in a world built on words? And, more importantly, am I still writing to bring glory to my Savior?
I'm scared to walk out the front door. Will I meet unsavory people that I'll have to run from? Will I cower instead of witnessing to my friend? Will everyone see how weak I really am?
Even writing this post is a battle. I'm so scared that people are going to take this wrong, that they're going to come back at me with scathing remarks and ridicule, and that the message will somehow get lost in the wake of my jumbled sentences. I'm scared to be real, to share my dreams, to tell people I'm a writer, because I'm afraid that they're going to laugh in my face.
Yes, I am weak. It feels horrible to say it, but it's true.
We all know who the apostle Paul was, right? He went from hating Jesus and killing His followers to laying down his life for the Gospel. In 1 Timothy 4:15 he says, "Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress." He was exhorting Timothy to continue studying God's Word, to literally submerge himself in it, so that others could see that he was growing in his walk with Christ.
I'm coming to realize that this is exactly what I need to be doing.
When you fill your mind with things that aren't so good - or even good things - they distract you from your real purpose. They pull you away from being wholly devoted to God's Word and send you spiraling at the first sign of trouble. But if you are continually immersed in the Bible and renewing your knowledge of God every day you will know how to stand in trouble.
And, more than that, you will stand.
There will be days when you just want to hide under the covers.
Get up anyway.
There will be days when the darkness will be howling for your soul, ready to devour you and jump all over you when you're down.
Turn and face it.
There will be days when there's so much fear inside of you, so many haunting lies of the impossibilities of life, that you want to hide in a hole in the ground and never come out again.
Crawl out of your hole, brush the dirt off, and march out to the war.
There will be days when you don't want to pray.
Pray anyway.
There will be days when reading your Bible feels like a chore, when your life feels like one blob of nothingness, and you don't think that there's anything you can contribute to the world.
When you read your Bible, you can find your meaning. Read it anyway.
There are times when the fear will cripple you, when you have to fight to get the words out. There will be times when every doubt you've ever had will be at the forefront of your mind and scream at you to give up. "Stop writing and walk away!" they say. "Listen to your fear. You will never overcome."
Write anyway. Fight against that darkness. Use your words and fight back against the lies that won't stop, against the crushing weight that tries to drown your soul. Don't listen to them. Don't let them steal your peace.
And tell them, "By the way, my Savior has already overcome. You know what that means? I can overcome too."
Jesus has won the war, but there's still a battle going on, my friends. Now go read Ephesians 6 and prepare for the fight of your lives.
Tally ho,
Rachael Anne
Comments
Post a Comment