Fear in what?

Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

Fear is faith in the other kingdom. I didn’t come up with that one someone else did and it was shared with church tonight. I didn’t want to go tonight when I got ready to leave the house it was raining, I haven’t walked today, and I just wanted to sit at home and read all night. I went and it was a business meeting where I attended and I thought ‘Great! Why didn’t I just stay at home like I wanted?’ I was blessed for going and I can’t walk in the rain.

Fear of failure, fear of not accomplishing, fear of heights, fear of cockroaches is top on my list of fears. Then I examine my life and I have got lots more fear in my life than I like to admit. I have a fear of knowing the truth about the way people feel about me. And I know this stems from my fear of wanting to be accepted which falls under the failure category. I’ve always excelled at anything I have tried in my life and to not excel would devastate me. I want to be accepted to the point sometimes that I conform and this has hurt my testimony and witness in some cases. I also have lowered my standards in what I would want for my life by conforming as well. Have you ever found yourself evaluating your life so much that you start to understand why you behave the way you do? It can be a learning and growing experience.

Growing up, being in the spotlight was always what I did and I shined brightly under those lights. Then as I became older I didn’t feel accomplished anymore b/c I was sitting at home raising my babies. And I felt like a failure b/c I wasn’t ’accomplishing’ anything that I could hang on the wall or smile at the cameras for. Now that my babies are 14, 9, and 8 (on Sunday) I can look at their lives and know that I accomplished A LOT in those 9 to 10 years of staying home raising them. I did what I wanted to do by having my family while I was young, in my early 20s. And I did put my education on hold to finish raising my younger two children. But you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to give those years of being home with them back to have my education instead.

And now the Lord wants to bless me with my education and no distractions while doing it. I’m super excited about going back to college. I can’t imagine how much time it has been since I’ve sat in a classroom but I’m ready to put my nose into books and study. I’m so bored right now waiting for classes to start at the end of August! I wonder if I can keep up this blog while studying at school? I’m sure I can b/c this is an outlet for me. I love to write and if I have an audience then I guess I’m gonna keep giving you something to read. I need to find a paper or magazine that would pay me to publish some of my stuff. If any of you have any suggestions about that please let me know b/c I don’t want to work part time on someone else’s schedule. Between going to my hometown to visit my kids and watch football this fall and taking classes I don’t see how I could fit a part time job into my life. But with writing I could do that from home and I would like to supplement my income. So any ideas would be appreciated, thanks. Just respond to my dashboard on this blogger website.

So back to fear is faith in the other kingdom. Fear is a normal part of life and healthy actually but too much fear can paralyze many areas of your life. And the Bible has many scriptures pointing out that to fear the Lord is a good thing. Psalm has a couple that are just praise worthy. “The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever, The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous.” Psalm 19:9 “The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear?” Psalm 27:1 “You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day.” Psalm 91:5 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.” Psalm 111:10 And this one reminds us of who is in charge of everything anyway so we should fear only Him. “I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.” Psalm 34:4