#Blessed. Hashtag blessed. Blessed ya’ll! Blessed & Thankful!

Happy New Year! Hard to believe it’s 2018, but here we are. I’ve seen the above combination of words/phrases/hashtags etc…a lot as we just wrapped up the holiday season, and it got me to thinking. Here was what was on my mind as I wandered through a variety of social media and news stories these last couple of weeks.

When I was growing up, I would often see things that I wanted. Games, toys, books, pocket knives, cool cars, new bikes, basically, ya know, things that kids think are cool.

I’ve said this before, but it goes to the heart of what I’m trying to say, so I’ll repeat it, when I was a kid, my family was poor. Now understand, because I think some people have a misconception of what poor means, especially these days, but when I say poor, I mean 6 people (for a bit, and then 5, but either way) living on roughly $800.00 a month. Yes this was back in the 80’s and early 90’s but it wasn’t enough to live on even then.

At the worst stretch, a period of 4 or 5 years, here are some of the highlights: I lost track of the number of times we moved, always chasing cheaper rent or a better situation, but by the time we “settled” somewhere for longer than 6 months, we’d moved well beyond 20 times. We moved once 4 times in a single year. I switched schools 5 times, and 2 months into my freshman year of high school, I stopped going altogether because my mom had to work and there wasn’t anyone else to take care of my brothers and sisters, so I stayed home, and walked my siblings to and from school, and made meals, and helped with homework, and ya know, whatever else was needed at the time.

We once lived in a condemned and abandoned mobile home with no heat, and no running water in the middle of winter in Alaska. It would get so cold we’d pull a bed into the kitchen and sleep in front of the oven which my mom would turn on and crack the door halfway for heat. We washed our clothes in a bathtub which we’d fill with water that I would haul in 5 gallon jugs from the neighbor’s house.

We once lived in a 15 foot travel trailer and used a small red bucket for a toilet. One single mom and 4 kids. It’s not pleasant math. As a family, we slept more than once in whatever broken down vehicle we were using at the time. I even slept once on the side of the state highway because on the drive back to our town from a court visit in a larger city 50 miles away my mom was too tired to drive and had to pull over to avoid crashing. There were 5 of us in the car that night, and there simply wasn’t room so I got out and slept on the road.

I remember my mom crying once because she was able to buy us all “Subway” and I put that in quotes because it wasn’t Subway but it was too long ago for me to remember the name of whatever eatery she bought the sandwiches from. I got invited to a basketball tournament once by some friends and I was so excited. I had exactly one pair of pants at the time and they were black sweat pants. I decided to wash them so they’d be fresh for the big event, and so I washed them in the sink ( we had no washer and dryer) and dried them by turning on the oven and putting the pants flat on the oven door. I couldn’t have left them on there longer than a few minutes but I burned them straight through and ruined my only pair of pants and it brought me to tears. I was heartbroken because I was certain I wouldn’t be able to go now on this trip I’d been looking forward to all week. Somehow I squeezed myself into a pair of my younger brothers pants that were two sizes too small for me and made me look exactly as poor as I was.

We frequented the poor box at our church for clothes and food. We all wore clothes and shoes too big or too small for us, and basically we lived by the Grace of God and the charity of others. There are many, many more examples of that, but I think you understand the point.

I don’t think these are unique stories. I think poverty is real and serious and exists in many fashions across many spectrums, that was simply the experience of myself and my family for several years of my childhood, and it wasn’t pleasant. I didn’t have poor friends growing up. I had middle class, and wealthy friends growing up and so I was often on the outside looking in, being envious of things I wasn’t sure I’d ever experience.

As I got older, I had an almost singular goal, to never live like I had been forced to live when I was younger. I wasn’t ashamed of being poor, I didn’t think anyone was better than me, I was incredibly lucky in that I didn’t suffer from low esteem or identity issues because my family didn’t have money. I just thought being poor sucked and I didn’t want to be poor ever again.

I’m 40 now. Not old by any means, not a spring chicken either, but with a more specific kind of wisdom and understanding of life. 2017 was a long year for me. In fact the last 3 years have been particularly arduous. Not bad or unpleasant, just long, and it’s taken me awhile to understand why. You see back then, when I was watching my friends eat lunchables and Oscar Meyer sandwiches of various kinds and being picked up by their parents in new Suburbans, and cars, and going on Summer vacations and whatever else I watched them do, I had no real understanding of what wealth meant. No concept of riches or treasure. I was saved when I was 10 years old so I knew the Lord, but knowing Him and believing in Him is very, very different from understanding things about our walk with Him and the way he molds and shapes us.

I made the decision in 2014 to move from Seattle Washington back to Alaska where I was born and raised. I had lived in Seattle for several years and had built a life and wealth and a home there for myself and my son. I had moved there with the specific intention of leaving the place I had always called home to look for something more. Something better. Something bigger. I succeeded. I had left my family and my friends and struck out on my own in a place I knew no one and had nothing and told myself that nothing was going to stop me from finally attaining what I had always wanted to attain. And I did that. I bought all the things I had always wanted to buy. I had more clothes than I could fit in a closet, I drove a new car, bought $500.00 watches like they were $5.00 watches, took vacations, gave money to people who needed money, enrolled my son in extra curricular activities, went to Comic Com, ate out everyday. Things that a lot of people probably consider normal, but for me it was intoxicating, It was proof that I could be something better than my childhood. I was finally one of those people I had watched as a kid.

The decision to leave all that and move home was made with as much trepidation and second guessing as I’d had in some time, and I left a huge promotion and a raise at my old company on the table to do it. I knew though, deep down, that it was the right decision. The Lord was moving me on, and while I didn’t know it at the time, it was the culmination of a lot of work he’d already been doing in my life and in my heart.

Moving back was a calculated risk that I took knowing that God was in my corner. I trusted that moving back would be a boon to my life, not a bane, and so when I arrived back in Alaska in the late fall of 2014, I assumed that things would just fall into place and life would go on much as it had in Seattle. I was wrong. The circumstances of that first few months is a post for a different time, but to say that things did not going according to my plan is a true understatement. Looking back now, it wasn’t so bad, but in the midst, it felt like a disaster, and I would often find myself asking God where He was. It was troubling, and painful, and took me back to a place and time in my life that I’d never wanted to be again. It took me back to being 14 and packing up all my worldly belongings in the middle of the night and clambering into a U-Haul with my brothers and sisters and my mom and leaving my town and my home and my friends behind to move somewhere new. It took me back to a time in my life when I was 12 and the heat in our travel trailer had gone out and my mom woke me up to go and change out the propane tank which weighed more than I did in sub-zero temperatures. It took me back to a time in my life when my family and I lived in a battered women’s shelter for a year and I couldn’t tell my friends where I lived because it was against the rules.

Now if you’ve made it this far, you might be asking yourself what this all has to do with being blessed. A lot of background info that doesn’t seem to have much point, you might be saying to yourself. Well if you’ll notice, the commonality between most of what I’ve said so far, is that it more or less revolves around the material. What I have had or haven’t had during my life, and I want people to really understand I’ve truly seen both sides of that coin.

Moving back to Alaska has had a profound impact on my life, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the change in geography. You see the Lord has finally gotten my attention. He’s finally stood me up and said, “Son, you belong to me. I have a plan and a purpose for your life and its past time for you to be seeking that, don’t you agree?” And for the first time, I’ve really found myself saying yes. Yes I agree, and yes it’s been a long time coming, and yes I’d like to see the world and my life and people through your eyes, so teach me Lord to see with your eyes and not my own. And wouldn’t you know, true to His word, when we say yes, He really does manifest in our lives.

For me that manifestation has occurred in multiple ways, and some of them are  material, but the most important, the one I hope people comprehend when they read this, is that what He has blessed me with in the physical, is inconsequential compared to what He’s blessed me with in the spiritual. You see moving back here forced me to trust Him in ways that I hadn’t had to. It forced me to shift my perspective and start seeing myself through a different lens, to start seeing wealth or blessings, or happiness outside of the physical manifestation of those things and instead to lift my eyes to Him and to begin to understand what Blessings actually are. Webster (the dictionary folks) defines it as this: (1) The act or words of one that blesses (2) a thing conducive to happiness or welfare (3) grace or to say the blessing over a meal.

I won’t pretend those things aren’t true, but I think it misses the point, that for Christians, has to be at the foremost of our thoughts. I’ll be honest, I’m typing this post on a new computer. I bought a new car a few months ago. I just got back from a vacation with my son. I don’t have any real money issues. I have some debt, and sometimes I can find myself stressing a little about a large purchase or expense, but in truth I don’t worry too much about my financial footing. Not because I’m rich, but I’m solid upper middle class, and I have a good job that pays me well commensurate with my skills and abilities.

So no, I won’t try to pretend that I’m living on a street corner and telling everyone how much material things don’t matter and then secretly wishing I had those things. I have those things and have had those things and I’m telling you that they don’t matter, because the lightbulb finally went off. I finally understand the difference between lower case b blessings, and upper case B blessings. Growing up, and through my life when I would run into money trouble, or have relationships fall apart or whatever other issues I might’ve faced,  I would often rail at God and ask Him where he was and recite scripture, that when misconstrued, can make it sound as if God is just waiting to bless us with the lottery jackpot so we can go and live our best lives.

But now, with such a distinct paradigm shift in my heart, this is what I see for the first time…He’s always been there. ALWAYS been there. ALWAYS been there. No matter what my life brings me or has brought me or may bring me in the future He’s there. Yes I was poor growing up, but because of that financial poverty I saw miracles. Christmases where the night before, we would be wondering what we would eat for dinner, with no presents, a barren tree and bare cupboards and nothing but one another and the next morning waking up to a bag left at our door sometime before we woke up with presents and food, and several bags that followed through the day. Each knock at the door bringing a new bag with new joys in it, and always left by someone who was gone by the time we got to the door.

Miracle Christmas tree’s, too long of a story to go into. Moments of beautiful kindness from strangers for a single mom and her kids who had nothing and no one and the helping hand that meant the difference that day between gas in the car to get somewhere we needed to be or not. A mom, God bless her, who fought through every ridiculous and terrible circumstance, and somehow still raised relatively put together human beings, and always, always made sure we knew that no matter what kind of money we had, what mattered was our relationship with Jesus, our integrity, and what was in our hearts. That’s a miracle. We had love in our home. That’s a miracle.

The families of my friends who knew and understood the situation my family was in and made it a point to always invite me to meals and include me in their activities so I felt like I belonged. My grandmother who is still alive at 94 years old who has a passion for running and athletics who always made sure when I was older that I had new running shoes for that season of cross-country running or track. A teacher in 6th grade who taught me how to build a canoe, and fly fish. My best friends dad, who was one of the only male role models I had growing up who taught me how to shoot, and what it meant to be a husband and a father, and who gave me the best relationship advice I’ve ever gotten when I was 19 years old that’s stuck with me to this day no matter how difficult a time I’ve had putting that advice into practical application.

All that lack in my life that wasn’t even lack, just opportunity for God to say here I am, and I love you. Maybe most of that was something material I could put my hands on or tell someone about in  a way that they’d understand, but now older and wiser I see what really matters. What I see now, even as I know I am financially and materially blessed and would never ever want to take that for granted or not give the credit to my God in Heaven, but what I see now is this, that for all those wonderful things He blessed me with, what really maters, the upper case B part of that, is His love. It’s those things that I’ve spent far less time chasing and far more time ignoring because I was too blind to see.

His Love. His Grace that never fails. The fact that He’s never given up on me. The daily whispers of encouragement and wisdom and again love. That love that has been a recurring theme these last few years as He’s led me down a path that He set out for me long before I was born. The love that says I am bigger than any of the things you think you’ve failed at. He took a broken, wounded, stubborn young boy and despite my best efforts, has turned me into something resembling a healthy, triumphant adult. He sits ever closer to my heart, never forcing me, never angry at me, never shaming me, never telling me how worthless I am though so many of my choices over the years would give evidence to the fact that somewhere along the way I must’ve felt I was.

That is what BLESSINGS are. Those are the things I see now I couldn’t see then, or even a few short years ago. The perspective to see my life for the joy that it’s been. The truth and the knowledge, free from the enemies lies, that He has always stood with me, that with Him, and through Him my life has been so much more than the things I have attained, or the positions in life I have climbed too, or the people I’ve dated or how my Facebook and Instagram posts have compared to someone else’s, or how nice my car is, or whatever other way human beings measure themselves against each other. You and I can, and should see this for the truth it is. We are the most Blessed individuals on the planet, completely removed from anything this world has to offer, because Jesus humbled Himself for you and I, and sacrificed himself for us, so that we could be with Him forever in His Kingdom.

My life has had struggles. I’m sure your life has had struggles. And tomorrow when we wake up there will be trouble to face down the road. I may never have as much money or as many possessions as I do right at this moment. I may wake up tomorrow and find out I’ve been fired and be facing some pretty imminent financial doom without a paycheck rolling in every other week. God forbid, I could find out tomorrow or next week that I, or someone I love is sick and dying and needs more medical care than I can afford. The world is full of danger and disaster, and I’ve lived through a lot of it, as have so many other  millions of people. But now…armed with new revelation, with a more receptive heart and attitude to seeing my life and my God through a prism of thanksgiving and awe, I’ve started to understand that money or not, possessions or not, health and well-being or not, even physical life or not…God doesn’t change, and without any of those things I am as rich and as blessed as anyone who’s ever lived, because 2,000 years ago, out of love and sacrifice, my Father gave me the ultimate gift; the never-ending Blessing of life. Lived without fear of condemnation and death, at His side for all time. All the watches, all the christmas presents, all the relationships, all the love of the world or even those I love here, they can’t, they don’t, measure up to what he holds out willingly in His hand everyday for me to grab hold of.

Now if God is responsible for all my blessings, and He is, then you  might ask, why aren’t they all upper case B blessings? Well there is merit to that. It’s not that they aren’t all blessings from the same hand, it’s that in the pursuit of those material blessings I have often overlooked, sometimes out of indifference, sometimes deliberately, sometimes simply because I didn’t understand, the gifts he offers everyday whether or not I live on the street or in a mansion. That’s why, for me, those are different kinds of blessings. All important, all wrought by the hand of my King, but with significantly different meaning and value to my life and my spirit.

That was sort of a long, run-on thought bubble and it’s been sitting with me for a bit now, so I hope you made it this far, and I hope if you did, it spoke to some part of your life. That’s the point of saying all this after all, and I’ll end with this…I know for myself, it’s sometimes easy to overlook…I like watches, and I like being able to buy them. I like having full cupboards. I like being able to plan trips with my brothers, and donate money to worthy endeavors, and not worry about shoelaces breaking because I can actually afford to buy more. I like my new car because it drives better than my old car. I like not waking up with panic and fear in my chest wondering if the electricity will still be on because I haven’t been able to pay the bill. I’m not pretending that when you think about your blessings you ignore the things that are easy to see all around you. I’m saying…no, what I’m imploring you to do…after you’re done counting those, and I pray that there are many in your life, dig a little deeper, think a little harder, and the next time you see #Blessed, remember…the true thanksgiving for believers, the true merit to that thought, happened the moment Christ was willingly nailed to His cross. For you, for me, for all of us.

What we see when we look at anything, be it the simple or the divine is often colored by our perception of what should be. In the minds of most of us is the idea of the ideal. It’s our perception. Recently I have been struggling mightily with what I perceive my life to be right now. I moved back to my home state and city after several years in Washington state. While I was very financially successful in Seattle, life as I wanted it to be when I moved there, never materialized for me. I can’t really tell you why, just that it didn’t. I had friends, not as close as the ones I left behind, but good people who I enjoyed spending time with. I had a girlfriend who, though not perfect wanted a life with me. I had a good job that though stressful and often requiring much more time from me than most jobs, afforded me a certain lifestyle that I enjoyed. It was a recipe for success if ever there was one, and yet there was something missing. I often attributed it to my overall struggle with simple contentment. I have always been one to strive in different ways for things I don’t yet have. Not material things, but an idea of who and what I should be, and being in Seattle didn’t provide that. It had its moments, and I wasn’t miserable or hating life, it just felt emptier really then it should have. For such a busy life it lacked a fullness I expected to discover when I moved there.

Moving back to Alaska wasn’t an easy choice. I looked at as many different contingencies and scenarios as I knew how to, and above everything else, I prayed. A lot. I didn’t know if Alaska was the right place for me, but I knew Seattle no longer was, and that change was necessary. It’s now been a couple of years since I got home. A long couple of years. Funny how our sense of time changes based on our mood isn’t it? The good times, the fun times, the times you want to freeze in suspended animation to enjoy forever? Those times rush by, moving so fast that we scarcely see them before they’re gone. The hard times, the times we struggle, the times we have difficulty even breathing? Those times can linger long after they’re gone, to infect the next moments, and the next and the ones after that. So how do we avoid that? How do we get past those moments with grace and our happiness intact?

The Word says The joy of the Lord is our strength. There is a passage in the Bible, Nehemiah 8:10, that describes a moment when a gathering of Israelites was weeping while the Book of the Law of God was being read to them. I don’t know what was in the book but whatever it was, the Bible says ALL the people had been weeping. That’s pretty powerful stuff.  Nehemiah, a man named Ezra, and a group of Levites told the people to go and eat and drink and be merry more or less because that day was holy to the Lord, and Nehemiah says then, “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” How many times do our circumstances do to us what the Book of the Law of God was doing to those Israelites? I know there are times when even if I’m not actually weeping I certainly feel like doing so. And for what? How often does our perception of our circumstances effect how we feel and what we see as reality? And this brings me to my original point. What we believe things should be, often colors what actually is. Good and bad. When Jesus died on the cross for us it wasn’t just forgiveness and eternal life we were granted. He gave us the power over death and sin that He has.

If our circumstances dictate to us how we should feel, what we should do, how we should move forward, the enemy sees openings to attack us. To fill our heads with a wrong perception of what should be. What should be, for believers at least, is exactly what is, as directed by our Father who tells us He works ALL things for the good for those that love him.  There is no trick to that. The difficulty lies in our Faith in His direction for us, and how hard it is to see outside our circumstances to understand what He has coming down the path for us. I’ve always thought if I could just see a little further down the road how much easier would it be then to follow along. But that isn’t Faith. That’s Thomas saying “Lord I’m gonna need to poke those holes and make sure it’s you.” And Thomas was one of the Disciples for goodness sake! He walked with Jesus for three years. Saw miracles performed on the fly, and still he needed to see and touch to believe. We should never compare our lives to anyone else’s and certainly not our struggles, but I can’t pretend I don’t take at least some small comfort in knowing that my struggle to believe in His plan for my life isn’t so out of the ordinary.

The emptiness I felt in Seattle, that lack of contentment? It wasn’t about what really was, but rather what I thought should be. I want to be married, to have more kids, to have a real home filled with love and laughter and peace. For whatever reason there are times I have great difficulty seeing my life in a positive light. I’m not married so in that at least there is some reality. But I have a son. A wonderful young man who I’ve been proud to raise as a single father for the last 18 years. I have good people in my life that value who I am and what I bring to their lives. I have had wonderful moments of laughter and peace and love, but there is always a part of me that thinks it’s not enough. Ungrateful some would call it. Spoiled perhaps others. I don’t think it’s either. I think it’s the lack of Joy that comes from my Heavenly Father. It’s the idea that my life has to have certain things in it to have real value. That if I’m not married, I’m not loved enough. That if I don’t have more kids to do a better job than I did with the first one that I failed at that so very important task. That if I don’t have a home that somehow I haven’t worked hard enough or been responsible enough with my money to afford one.

The reality is that God created and called me for a purpose. While He has spoken to me and over me that marriage, more kids, and a home are all in my future, that shouldn’t matter. What matters is His purpose for me, not what I want my purpose to be. The truth is that we will always fail at what we want the most if we look to ourselves to attain it. I’ve learned the truth of this many times over the years and yet it’s a lesson I still struggle to remember. Even in the midst of those aforementioned promises the enemy whispers to me all the time it’ll never happen. Why should I believe that, and more importantly, why should it matter? When we finally start to bring our perception in line with God’s then we can start to see the truth of our lives. See the truth of what He has for us. Those things that only He can bring us to.

I’ll leave you with this scripture from Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-His good, pleasing and perfect will”.

On March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became our 32nd president. During his inauguration speech, he uttered a sentence which has become as well known as any in our country’s history, even if many don’t know it’s origination. Roosevelt entered office during one of the most daunting times in our nation’s history. On October 29, 1929, a day that came to be known as Black Tuesday, the largest ever market sell-off occurred crashing an already troubled stock market and ushering in a 10 year period known as the Great Depression. Over the course of two days some $30,000,000,000.00 (30 billion) in wealth was obliterated from American households. As a point of reference, in today’s dollars, accounting for inflation, that would be the equivalent of $423,564,912,280.70. Over the next 3 years, 4 months and 2 days before Roosevelt became president, the American agricultural industry was decimated, worldwide GDP (gross domestic product) fell 15% by some estimates, international trade dropped by 50%, the construction industry ground to a halt, unemployment in the United States, at its peak, reached 25%…fully a quarter of the country unable to find work. By every measure one of the darkest and most difficult eras in the country’s 157 year history. An event so devastating, that in its aftermath it became a worldwide barometer for how far an economy can drop, and is a comparison that remains to this day.

Into this horror stepped Roosevelt, and during his speech, standing in Washington D.C., no doubt feeling the enormity of the task he was about to undertake, said this, “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” He would go on to lead the United States out of the great depression,  through World War II, a dark and terrifying time in its own right, and serve as president for an unprecedented and never repeated 12 years.

Fear is a funny thing isn’t it? Sometimes we seek out fear by going on ridiculous roller coaster rides, or watching horror movies in a darkened movie theater, or jumping out of an airplane with a parachute, or swimming with sharks. You get the idea. When we do these things, we call it seeking a thrill or an adrenaline rush, but it’s really fear. That emotion that kicks our Fight or Flight response into overdrive, and produces those stomach curls we all know so well. But there’s also a difference isn’t there, between that sort of fear, we’ll call it “fun fear” and the type of fear that Roosevelt was referencing in his words to the nation?

The word fear is mentioned over 500 times in the bible. By comparison love is mentioned 551 times, faith 458 times, forgiveness (or forgive, forgiving etc…) 150 times, death 454 times, and righteous or righteousness 545 times. These are estimates and depend on translation, but you understand the point. Fear is an oft mentioned thing in the Word of God right up there with love and righteousness. We know because he tells us, that He doesn’t say things just for the sake of saying them. He says them because they’re important, and because we need to hear them. We see illustrated, time after time in the bible, the drastic repercussions of fear. The times it has taken hold of even the most dynamic and revered of the “heroes” of the Word if you will, and sent them plunging off God’s designated path for them and into trouble. It caused Moses (mentioned 847 times in the bible by the way. Bet you didn’t know that) to argue with God as he was receiving his assignment from the Most High. God himself is there, Moses has just seen a bush burst into flame, and knew that it was an angel of the Lord, and had just heard these amazing words spoken to him that he was going to deliver his people and that God was gonna help him kick some butt, and he argued! At length! And, this was after he had already fled his adopted homeland out of fear that someone would discover that he killed an Egyptian guard! God finally had enough and dispatched Moses brother Aaron to help him out. It caused Elijah to run from Queen Jezebel, crawl under a tree and ask God to let him die. It caused David to have one of his soldiers murdered so afraid was he that his affair with the man’s wife would be discovered. Of the 12 spies sent into the promised land as the Israelites were preparing to cross the Jordan, 10 of them were so afraid of the people already inhabiting the land, that they came back, and in essence told an entire nation of people who’d been wandering in the desert for 40 years, that they might as well turn back because there was no way they were going to be able to defeat the giants who stood in their way. Fear caused Peter, arguably one of Jesus’ closest friends and confidants to deny that he even knew Christ. It caused that same man to start sinking into the water of the Sea of Galilee, when just seconds before in one of the most famous miracles ever recorded, he’d been walking on the surface of it.

I know for myself, fear has caused me to doubt, to lie, to hurt others, to run from God, to be selfish, to stay in bad relationships, to question how God sees me, to harbor resentment. I could go on. Fear is a big deal. It’s a bad deal.

So what’s the point? The point is that fear can stop us, does stop us, from walking in our God given purpose and anointing. It stops us from trusting God in difficulty. It stops us from seeing all of the good He’s already done in our lives, the places He’s already taken us out of. It gives the enemy an opening to attack us and cause even more damage than we already cause ourselves. It puts blinders on us and causes us to narrow our vision to that one thing we’re afraid of, almost overwhelming our rational thought process. It clouds our judgment.

In interviews with policemen and soldiers and professional fighters, and others like them there is one theme that tends to present itself. These men and women are not immune to fear. They can be afraid just like other folks, but the difference is, they’ve learned how to control their fear and keep control of themselves to allow them to still complete the task at hand. Can you imagine if a soldier or a firefighter, or a police officer was overwhelmed by the fear that must enter their minds when they go running into a burning building, or have guns pointed in their directions, and worse when those guns are firing real bullets at them?

That’s what Jesus is for believers. He’s our way of dealing with our fear. Controlling it, letting it go. Knowing Jesus doesn’t make us immune to fear. Knowing Jesus means that when we are afraid, we know exactly where to take that fear. See, it doesn’t belong to us. It’s a trick the enemy uses to take us away from our savior. Do bad things happen? Yes they do. But we’re all called to a “job” if you will and when we bring Jesus into the equation He brings with Him the peace and the courage and the freedom that gives us the ability to be like those men and women, and continue to do our “job”.

Now whether or not Roosevelt intended his words to be used for this analogy, as believers we can use the words from his speech to remind us that fear in itself should be feared, but only to the extent that we recognize its existence and know enough to call in our support to release us from that fear. 2nd Timothy 1:7 talks about the Spirit God gave his people, not of fear, but of power, love and self discipline. John 14:27 says “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” And one of my favorites, Matthew 6:33-34 “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” These are incredible words of encouragement. God speaks directly to us and tells us not to be afraid because He lives in us, walks with us, knows how it all turns out. What can be better than that?

Fear isn’t always the big boogey man in the dark is it? It isn’t always easy to recognize when what’s troubling us is fear. How many of us have said this, “Oh I’m fine, just a little stressed.” Guess what, the underlying cause of stress is worry, and the underlying cause of worry is…fear. See the enemy doesn’t always come at us guns blazing, his most terrifying snarly face on, screaming at the top of his lungs, “I’m the devil and I’m gonna get you!” No sometimes he comes at us in the quietest most obvious ways, and if we’re not really in step with the Lord, really tuned in to His presence in our lives, seeking Him always, we can miss it. It’s why we are called to constantly be on our guard, because the enemy is always battling, always throwing things our way, always trying to tear us way from our relationship with the Lord. We think it’s normal to be worried, or to take on more than we can handle and stress ourselves out, or to allow other people to make their stuff our stuff. But what’s normal for the world shouldn’t be normal for us. In fact the exact opposite is true. When we remember that Jesus is our rock, then we remember that fear is an illusion, and the scary stuff starts to melt away and be replaced by comfort, and trust and hope, and we begin to live in the freedom that only comes from knowing Him.

None of that is easy is it. I don’t think following the Lord in general is easy. That’s a personal opinion of course, and maybe my difficulty is just my own failings, but I tend to think not. I have failings of course, and they are numerous in nature and would require a book to list and explain. But being a believer…It requires of us doesn’t it? In ways that other things do not, and maybe that’s the point. Or part of it anyway. That difficulty requires us to trust Him and rely on Him completely. To let go of our fear and our anxiety and our flesh and lean into him with absolute certainty that He will always be there. When we get it right, when we get it wrong, always.

Fear is a tough thing…it can be hard to recognize, harder to control. When fear enters the equation, faith and trust can be hard to come by, doubt is our constant companion, and we get stuck sort of waffling between knowing we’re okay and wondering why our circumstances don’t match what our spirit tells us is true about God and His goodness. But if we can see our way clear to lift our eyes, call out the name of Jesus, and let Him reign, then friends, truly the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Have you ever been to a corporate retreat? I haven’t, but I’ve read about them. They sound super awesome. I really meant that sarcastically, but maybe I’m just jealous because I’ve never been invited to one before. Either way, whether you’ve been or not, I think we’ve all seen those videos, maybe from a retreat, maybe from a marriage seminar, maybe from some party someone went to where they were playing tricks on each other, of the person standing straight up, arms crossed over their chest, eyes closed, and people behind them saying, “Okay, fall back and we’ll catch you!” Ummmm…that’s a negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full. Or to put it bluntly without the 80’s movie reference, I would not in a million years, allow myself to be the person to fall backwards.

Now the reasons for that are myriad, but it boils down to this, I have trust issues. This would not be any great revelation to people who know me, nor am I all that surprised to know and understand that about myself. I grew up in an interesting and sometimes difficult environment, that did not engender the building of successful interpersonal relationships, where trusting people was always easy, or always worked out well. Childhood to young adulthood to adulthood was filled with many examples of why trusting people is stupid. Of course on that same note, I’m sure, in fact I don’t even have to think that hard about it, that I was the person in someone else’s life once or twice, or 12 times, who left them thinking the exact same thing. So I’ve been the untrustworthy one, and I’ve had my trust burned. Do you see where the issues come from? Now just so no one thinks the problem is strictly mine, or that I’m wrong for not trusting people, here are a few scriptures for you: Micah 7:5-6 “Put no trust in a neighbor, have no confidence in a friend, guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.” Or how about this one from Jeremiah 17:5-12 “This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh, and whose heart turns away from the Lord.” Yikes! Next time you think about calling a friend for advice, or asking your neighbor to feed your cat while you’re out of town…well maybe don’t. Okay, in reality, and I’m trying to keep this lighthearted, because I think there’s enough doom and gloom out there, but in reality, trust, along with love and a few other key things, is a foundational aspect of any relationship. The bible isn’t suggesting we side eye everyone in our lives, and shun friendships, or sleep with one eye open if our in-laws happen to visit. What’s it’s telling us, and the reason for this post, is that God Himself is the only one deserving of our true and total trust. Our friends betray us, our spouses lie to us, our families hurt us. These are failures of human nature and our flesh. God though, and His unyielding, unfailing, all encompassing love and goodness are/is worthy of our belief and trust, as they are decidedly characteristics of Him and His nature, that define His relationship with us and ours with Him.

There are degrees of trust aren’t there? Oh the random co-worker, acquaintance I see every so often, old high school buddy; these people are not in my life enough for me to measure how much or how little I trust them. I mean they all sort of fall into the same category of, “Wouldn’t trust you with my life, might call you and warn you if there was a zombie apocalypse coming your way.” I tend to watch what I say and do anyway, because I think it’s wiser. But the people who matter in my life? The people close enough to me to love me, who understand me, who know my strengths and weaknesses? The people I rely on? The people I would save if there was a zombie apocalypse? Those people have  an imaginary number next to their names and it corresponds directly to how much I trust them, and what I would trust them with. Even within that inner circle if you will, of people I trust, I wouldn’t trust them all to the same degree or with the same thing. And that’s what you call having trust issues.

The problem with that is not so much about them, as it is that my life, without my knowing or realizing it, has also caused me to have trust issues with my savior. See I don’t think trusting people matters all that much outside of that particular relationship with that particular person. Not that it isn’t important, but you know, if you stink eye your relatives sometimes, or keep your neighbor at arm’s length, and keep your own counsel around your friends…meh. Maybe your life is a little lonelier than someone else’s, maybe people think you’re a bit of a jerk sometimes, but I think that’s about it. And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’ll see a different post in 6 months with some newfound revelation about trust, who knows. What I do know, is that if we don’t trust God, we are in serious trouble.

We are all created with gifts, and talents, and a purpose to use them. To further the Kingdom of God, to glorify His name, to perform the work of our Heavenly Father here on Earth…these are big, life defining things that require us to not only know God, but to trust implicitly in His plan for us. And it’s not easy. I certainly don’t think I’m alone in that, but speaking purely for myself, there are times when I struggle with that trust daily. Boiling it down into its essence, trust is faith right, and the bible if pretty clear on the importance of faith. The whole of Hebrews 11 is a manifesto on the importance of faith, Ephesians 6 as it’s describing the armor of God and the properties of that armor, describes faith as a shield, and of course Matthew 17:20 talks about having faith the size of a mustard seed and how that is enough to move mountains. Sidebar, have you seen how big a mustard seed is? If you haven’t, it’s tiny. Like minuscule. Like smaller than a peppercorn. I mean it’s not grain of sand small, but it’s pretty embarrassing that I can’t muster faith larger than a mustard seed, jeepers…but I digress. The point is, faith is big! It’s huge! It is impossible to please God without it, or to live our lives His way, for His purpose, if we don’t practice it.

It would be easy to point to my youth as the reason for my struggles, but the truth I think, is that much of it came from decisions I made as an adult. I won’t lie, I rebelled when I reached adulthood. Not in crazy ways. I was never much of a partier, I’ve never done drugs, I didn’t start breaking the law. But I did decide I knew better than the Lord how I should live my life, and as if to prove that fact, decided to make lots of bad decisions in lots of different ways. Mostly relationship stuff, some money things…other things I’m sure I could remember if I put my mind to it, but you get the point. And here is where that matters. You see, I never did anything that the world doesn’t consider part of the “normal” process of growing up, but we’re not called to be normal are we? No we’re not, in case you had to think about that question. If we consider being saved, or asking Jesus into our hearts, as the beginning of our relationship with God (in truth it has existed since before time began, but for this, we’ll go with being saved) then at that moment, at that precise moment that we understand we are called to something different, we have a responsibility to live differently right? We don’t get the option of saying, “Lord I’m yours”, and then pretending we didn’t just make the decision to radically alter our existence. To do that, to truly do that, if it’s what we really mean in our hearts, requires a level of trust in the Lord that I think would be impossible for us to muster for another human being.

When we’re younger and we go to school we want the same lunch as the cool kids right? If the cool kids have bologna we want bologna. If they have lunchables we want the same. Our emotions tell us to be like others. If you’re like me and had parents who were very health conscious chances are you were never rockin the bologna sandwich. My mom was very invested in what went into the bodies of myself and my brothers and sisters. We ate things like all natural peanut butter on whole wheat bread, and couscous, and homemade healthy whatever. My mom knew that was what was going to keep us healthy, and productive. Now isn’t that the same with Jesus right? Every moment of our lives has been seen by Him already, and He knows, far better than we do what will keep us healthy and productive. And He gives us those instructions in His Word. Do this and this, and this. Don’t do that or that, or this. But what if we don’t trust Him? Then we read the Word and it never penetrates to our heart and our spirit. We go to church and hear the same and it never launches us to work to advance the kingdom. See we can read and hear and see all day long, but without trust, we don’t ever live our lives any differently, and what a shame that is indeed, because we are not called to be like the world, but to live as if Jesus has set us apart, because He has.

How many times do we act like we don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing? I know I do. “Gee Lord, could I get a word of knowledge here, or a prophecy over my life? Can you give me some clues as to what you want me to be and do with my life.” And I imagine He’s in Heaven saying “Well son, there’s this book you see, perhaps you’ve heard of it? Lots of good things in there, been around for a little bit, you may have heard it called The Bible? You should give it a look see.” And I’m like, “Oh well yeah Lord, I know all of that stuff, but I mean what else!?” And He’s like, “Well you seem to be struggling pretty hard with those instructions already, so I’ve decided not to overwhelm you by giving you more.” And we get mad at that! I get mad at that! How audacious of me, or of us if you’re in the same boat!

I like to know the future. I think it gives me some semblance of control, but He’s saying “No! I’m in control! TRUST me! You just work on following my word, and seeking my kingdom. The rest will come in time.” Because He knows doesn’t He? What’s helpful and what’s not, what will help us or what will hurt us. What will edify His kingdom and what won’t. Our job is pretty simple but we make it really complicated, because deep down we’re still in elementary school and we still want Joeys bologna sandwich because we think mom and dad are full of crap about the whole eating healthy thing.

That was the chief mistake of my running away from God in my early adulthood. Boil it all down, and the rebellion was borne of a fundamental lack of trust, not just in Him as my God, but in His plan for my life, because whatever it was, I didn’t think it could be as good as my plan for my life.

These days…well I still struggle. I still worry…I still listen to Him make promises to me, and wonder if they will come to pass. But! And this is key, but…it’s getting easier. Funny thing about surrender, especially to God…the more we do it, the easier it gets. Like anything else, when you’ve developed a bad habit, in this case, mine was not trusting the one being who has actually died for me, it takes time to rid yourself of that habit. The Word tells us in James 4:7 to resist the enemy and he will flee from us. Actually the scripture reads, “Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” See submission requires trust. Submission, or to yield, or to give yourself over to someone else…that doesn’t come easy to all of us. Certainly not to me. So I have to work a little harder, practice a little more, pray a lot…just to get through a day sometimes.

But at the end it’s all worth it. Not so we can hold ourselves up as some paragon of virtue, not so we can show off, not so we can look at someone else and judge and say, gee I can do this, what’s wrong with you, but because who better to trust then the one who spoke us into being? I mean if we can’t trust the God who created us, then what an empty way to live. I may not trust person X, Y, or Z with my secrets or my heart, or my money, but I better be prepared, if I truly mean to serve Him and love Him, to trust everything I have and everything I am to the only one deserving of that.