New Wallpaper

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.—1 John 4:18

This week, the Lord suggested to me that I read the Timothys. I don’t know if you know much about Timothy, but when I picture him, I think of this teenage kid whom Paul just threw out into the world to preach the Gospel. I’m sure that’s not what actually happened, but I think that’s the way I picture him because that’s a little bit how I feel right now. I’m not a teenager (praise the Lord), but I feel very much inadequate to fulfill the role to which I’ve been assigned.

I read this verse: “…for God gave us not a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 2:7)

That verse is familiar to me. It’s the one you whisper in the dark when you are seven and you wake up in the middle of the night after a terrifying dream. (Ok, maybe that only happens if you are the child of children’s ministers who read you the whole Bible when you are seven….)

But now that I’m NOT seven, I suddenly realize what Paul meant.

I thought God had cleaned house on my fears last summer. I asked Him to show me my fears; and He is faithful to answer our earnest prayers. But I tell you, THAT wasn’t a fun day.  I could list all the deep, dark fears He revealed to me here, but I don’t want your eyeballs to fall out while you read 25 pages. It was like a spiritual zit exploded (not to be gross, but…that’s kind of what it felt like.) OUCH. Then God began the healing work.

I discovered, at the bottom of the fear barrel, the nasty slime that my fears had marinated in: that I wasn’t trusting God with my deepest and fondest dreams. All of my fears were connected; what seemed like silly fears really took root in deeper issues. Sin breeds more sin, the Bible says. And “anything that does not proceed from faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23)

You know what “does not proceed from faith”? Fear. And that makes fear….sin.

Again…ouch.

 It was like I was saying, “Ok, God…you can have my life. You can have my job. You can have my future home state/city/country. I completely trust You with these things. But….my social life…and my future marriage….oh yeah, and my identity…these things that really really matter to me…Well, don’t bother with it. I got this.”

How dumb is it for us to tell God “I got this”?

As we draw near to the light, things are naturally exposed (Ephesians 5:14). Our fears are exposed. And, as any seven-year-old knows, when your dad switches on the lights, your fears don’t look that scary anymore. Yet, many of us still cling to our fears like a security blanket. (Leave it to humanity to do the thing that makes the least sense.)

Fears are comfortable. They determine how we behave, and they become routine, something familiar, like a cup of coffee in the morning. For example, (the feminist in me cringes to even write this) I used to be afraid that I would not get married on my timeline. So I exercised to have the kind of body I thought this abstract man wanted; wore clothes I thought would attract him; hung out with people nonstop just in case he was there, just in case I would meet him. Needless to say, I was very proactive about my dreams…for fear I’d slip back into being that ultimate-introvert teenager who was socially disengaged and never dated anyone.

Crazy, right? And though I did not consciously realize this is what I was doing, it was happening nonetheless. But, like most other people on the planet, I sought comfort in the fear that motivated my everyday behavior. Even my thought patterns were familiar. They spun around and around again like that spinning wheel thingy at the casino—the comforting click of guaranteed loss.

But hallelujah! Praise God! Through the leading of the Holy Spirit, He revealed these fears to me last summer—and the simple prayers of a repentant daughter to a loving Father got me free. The Lord taught me to trust Him with some of my biggest dreams, and it was a sweet surrender. I was like, “Woah, awesome, God! You are totally amazing to be sanctifying me in this way!”

Meanwhile, He was saying, “Wow, glad we got that toe fungus out of the way. Now we can really focus on your broken femur.”

He loves us enough not just to move into our hearts, but to pick out wallpaper.

A couple weeks ago, I had a checkup on my spiritual femur. I freaked for a minute about moving to Washington DC.

What happened was, I saw this girl I graduated high school with in Big Lots. (I promise this is related.) I remembered her being pretty and smart. She is happily married, and has two of the cutest kids you’ve ever seen. I told her what I was doing, and she said, “Oh…I never finished anything…” She was probably thinking that she could’ve had a master’s degree, like me. But as her adorable baby smiled up at me, I couldn’t help but think, “Wow, she has the life I wanted.” Not to say I regret my education. I would do it over again in a heartbeat. But I have always wanted, more than anything, a family. (And you wonder why I had all those other fears associated with marriage….) I wasn’t jealous, exactly, and I was aware that my life so far has gone just the way it should; I was just simply sad.

I had to take these feelings to God. After I prayed about it, I discovered that this was just a sneak attack of that old fear: that my timeline isn’t His.

What if I move to Washington, and that defers my dreams (having a family) for a year?

The very next morning after my freak-out, I read in Genesis about Jacob’s dream. You know, the one with the shiny dudes climbing the ladder. Jacob had his own dreams for how things should go, and he (like me) was a little…um…proactive; but God gave him a literal dream. God gave him His dream for him. And He said, “…in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28)

There is no possible way that Jacob could have envisioned Jesus. Yet, through his family line, Jesus would be born to bless all of the nations of the world with salvation. God was effectively saying, “I will always carry out my promises. If I tried to tell you what I was doing, your head would explode. Just go with it. My dreams for you are SO much bigger than your own.”

So when I saw that girl in Big Lots, I was being asked once again to recommit my plans, my timeline, to God. I was being asked to meet Him here, in the now, in what He is asking me to do today, and be obedient. I was being asked to listen to the Holy Spirit on a moment-by-moment basis, not knowing what is going to happen, and being completely out of control.

And that’s scary, folks.

This all-out invasion of your very body is not a comfortable thought to the flesh. But, like it or not, He stands at the door and knocks—not so you can come out, talk to Him, and retreat back into your home like He’s a door-to-door salesman—but so that He can move into your spirit. Like I said, He’s picking out wallpaper. And if He is moving in, well…that means your little pet fears are gonna hafta move out.

But here’s where Timothy comes back in. (Promise that wasn’t a pointless tangent.) If you back up, like any good little Bible nerd does, to the verse just before 2 Timothy 2:7, you get this:

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

So…we get the Holy Spirit to power the fruits of love and self-control. Love and self-control cannot dwell where fear dwells. Selfishness (the opposite of these) often has to do with fear—fear of not getting what you want, fear of getting hurt, fear of people taking advantage of you….etc.

But that’s not all. Paul reminds Timothy here of the strong faith of his grandmother and mother, and then tells him to fan into flame the gift of God—the power of the Holy Spirit, which Paul conferred to Timothy “by the laying on of [his] hands.” In other words, he is telling Timothy not to be afraid of using his gifts, not to be afraid to submit to the Holy Spirit, not to be afraid of being obedient to God. Paul was a guy who knew what it cost to follow Jesus, to choose God’s plan—to let Him move in and pick out not just wallpaper, but curtains and a loveseat.

I’m not scared of moving to a new place and making new friends; been there, done that. I’m not scared of getting lost (I finally have a smart phone), or of being mugged (although several people mentioned the crime rate as soon as I told them where I was moving…thanks, guys).

But I might be a little afraid to submit to God. Because that means I’m out of control. And for sure, I feel very inadequate to exercise my spiritual gifts.

That’s why they’re spiritual gifts. Because the Spirit powers them—and I am going to have to depend on Him. Which is scary.

What are you afraid of?

I know God will bless me with a family. But that’s where my dreams stop. God’s keep going. They require full operation of all of the gifts He’s given me, and my full-out commitment to lean on the Holy Spirit. And, after some sincere prayer, I decided I don’t much mind if Jesus picks out a loveseat, and a recliner, too. Because He’s going to be living in me for awhile. In fact, for eternity.

How’s that for a new timeline?