What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.
Job 3:25 NIV
Salt and Sand
If you have ever been swimming in the ocean you may have had the experience of an unexpected wave giving you a taste of the salt of the water and the abrasive sand. Grit between your teeth. Or, if you have surfed experienced the board being knocked out from under your feet. Wipe Out.
Daily things happen in people’s lives that can knock them off their feet. Things of earthquake proportions that leave them shaken. Or, maybe even things from the past that come to the surface of the ocean of the heart with the force of a tsunami. Wiping out all faith with the overcoming fear that is left.
Job experienced this. All that one could fear happened to him in one day.
What is your worst fear?
Some of you may have a list, but let’s start with the one on the top of the list. Okay now let’s take a challenge Beth Moore issued on Wednesdays with Beth a few weeks ago. Take that fear and let it run its full course in your mind. Everything you think would happen. Then ask yourself, “Then what?”
Using my full voice is a great fear I have, but an even greater fear is that I would allow the fear to keep me from using it. That God wouldn’t be glorified by the gift He has given me, and I wouldn’t’ know complete restoration if I chose not to use it. As I have stepped out to use it I am always met with resistance. Sometimes fear that originates from within, from circumstances I have been in before, from the what if, or those, even family, who have threatened me if I should choose to use my voice.
Healing Whispers
Great pain exists when I pull back the bandages of the wounds, and the tape that has been over my mouth. My past is a place where I had no voice, and for years now God has peeled back the layers of my wounds. Healing can be an extremely painful process. My voice can whimper, cry out, scream, and is getting louder and clearer. I’ve traveled the road from whisper to a shout. I have ventured into deeper waters, experienced walking on it with a proclamation of triumph, and the wipe out that leaves me shouting for Jesus to save me with that same voice.
At the Door
No matter what I still face fear every day. It shows up at my door, wants to come in and push me around. Some days we wrestle, some days I slam the door in his face, some days he scares me under the covers of my bed I don’t want to leave. Some days I surf like a pro and others I wipe out and I am down for days or longer.
But God, in His wisdom and grace is teaching me to keep getting up and keep on keeping on. Because what Job feared would come upon him did, but he lived through it. In the end He knew God better and was blessed with double what He had before.
Get in the Water
So what is it you fear? Or what is it you feared that has come upon you? What if, what then, and what now?
Remember, you can make it through it knowing more about God and how He can turn what was meant for evil into good. He can also make you come out on the other side with double for your trouble. Any surfer will tell you don’t run from the waves, get back in the water. Faith says, “Cowabunga!”
“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.
Genesis 50:20 NASB
Another Samaritan Woman 