Whom shall I fear?

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?  Psalm 27:1 KJV

The past few months have been quiet here on the blog.  Maybe you've wondered the invisible questions that I sometimes thought you have:  Has she given up?  Is scared of moving forward?  Got sidetracked by life?  Was it just a passing fad and she's coming back to her senses?  

While there are admittedly moments where I wonder, when it seems as if nothing is happening that I can turn to and say, "This.  See, this is the next step.",  God is so very, very gracious to then send a little reminder that He is at work.  Sometimes that takes the form of getting to catch up ever so briefly with a friend and hear a long-ago promised story that is even sweeter hearing it in a time of drought.   Other times it is a name that jumps out at me from the blue, like seeing the book title A is for Abigail on the shelf at the library.

Some days, the reminders come straight from the Bible.  Back last May, in the midst of uncertainty over a potential job change for my husband, I took on a challenge to read through the Bible over the summer.  I find myself nearing the end, and this morning my reading in Hebrews just seemed to fly off the page.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  Hebrews 10:23 

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  Hebrews 11:1

And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.  Hebrews 11:11

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.  Hebrews 11:39-40 

Faith.   Belief that God is big enough to do the seemingly impossible.  That the impossible is often what brings the most glory to God, since we aren't able to mistakenly take credit for it ourselves.

Last night I also was reading in the book Anything: the prayer that unlocked my God and my soul, by Jennie Allen, and there were many parts that resonated within me about this journey that we are on.  One of those that really stood out was a section where she envisioned facing God at the end of life, and hearing him ask why she had sought her comfort more than him: 

Why had I loved people more than him?  Why had I sat on every gift he had given me to make him known?  Because I cared more about being judged by everyone else but him?  (p.78)  

The journey of these past few months has been hard to put into words.  It hasn't been so much a physical journey as a spiritual and mental one that I didn't seek out and didn't see coming.  It has involved shifts in my thinking that have made me realize that I can't fit neatly into labelled boxes of human creation, despite my best efforts.  God wired me differently, and He has been the one guiding me through this new territory.  It has been scary at times, because those same boxes are comforting in their close boundaries.  As much as checklists of do's and don't's seem to chafe at times, they hold out a (false) promise that one only has to follow them to find comfort and safety and happiness.  But at the same time, there sometimes isn't much room left for Jesus' call to follow Him in between the checking off of boxes. 

He has been showing me that He is bigger than I ever imagined, and isn't confined just to the places that I think He should be.  It's a little hard to even type these last sentences, knowing that there are some who will read them not as a discovery of God's greatness, but instead as a slide down a slippery slope.  I've read too many arguments from folks on all sides online, and the fear that someone will question the validity of my journey, the orthodoxy of my beliefs, or even my salvation has crept in quietly, leading me to only share some of this within the pages of my journal or very hesitantly with those closest to me.

But a few lines in that same book made me realize that in doing so, I am hiding God's work. 

But so many things about obeying him are weighty.  I am afraid of my capacity to do all of this.  I hate being out there for scrutiny.  I am afraid of what some of it will mean for my family and so many other things.  So why do it?  What if these little acts of obedience were a small part of a matrix of dominoes unfolding the glory of God . . . what if I laid down my life, my domino, and through that unleashed an army of others who laid down and unleashed their obedience, and through this matrix, God's glory was displayed . . . We are all dominoes in this . . . we all have our place in this.  What is yours?  p. 113

 I can let other people down.  If God is for me . . . the God of the universe for me . . . who could be against me?  Whom else shall I fear?  p. 38

Because in the end, while I love all of my brothers and sisters here on earth, you aren't the ones that I'll have to answer to about the choices I made.  And because I'm blessed with friends from all ends of the political and social spectrum, no matter what choice I make, it will leave some (or most?  :)  ) of you shaking your heads from time to time wondering if I've completely gone off the deep end.   But I have to realize that is alright, because in the end, God is the one whose opinion really counts.  When Jesus called me to follow Him, whether I did so or not is what will be considered. 

His calling for me will look different than His calling for you.  And while our paths may run parallel for a time, they remain our own paths.  And when our paths veer in different directions for a time, I promise to listen and rejoice with you as God works, to encourage you to lean always on Him and seek first his kingdom.  Will you do the same for me?

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds . . . Hebrews 10:23-24