I’m not gonna lie…
Flying in an airplane is a top 5 fear for me. It’s not just one part about flying that makes me afraid. It’s loading the plane, finding my seat, wondering who I sit by, taking off, every noise that the plane makes, every bump, knowing I am 30 thousand + feet in the air, the sound of the landing gear, landing…
The only relief I feel is when my two feet are walking the floor of the airport of my destination.
This week Averie and I will venture to the airport here in TC – with all the necessary child gear in tow – to see my parents in Atlanta. She will get to watch her mother struggle to relax for roughly 3.5 hours, having no clue what is going on.
Yes, I KNOW that statistics are on my side when it comes to the plane actually crashing, but the issue here is much more problematic than that – It’s about the condition of my heart.
Deep down I desperately desire to be in-the-know and control of things. I want to know how and when I will die, and I truly feel that I know what is best for me in life. Let me radically confess here that as a Christian, trusting that God has paid for my sin and that “it is finished” in Christ to live according to His will is the foundation of faith, I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that I cannot be in control.
This week I listened to a heart stirring sermon which God lovingly led me to repentance:
Number one: Fear is an attempt at sovereignty. “I see and know all, and I’m freaked out.” You don’t see and know all.
Number two: Fear is vision without God. “I see the future. God’s not in it. God’s not for me. God’s not going to help me.”
Number three: Fear turns us into false prophets. “Oh, I’ve seen the future, and it’s horrendous.”
Number Four: Fear preaches a false gospel. “Oh, there’s a hell out there: I’ll be single, I’ll be broke, I’ll be sick, I’ll be suffering, I’ll be struggling, all the things that John is enduring. So, there’s that hell, that functional, false, fearful hell, and then to get out of it, I need a false, functional savior. So, I need to hold onto my money. I need to control my life. I need to remove myself from community. I need to rebel against authority. I need to sin. I need to self-medicate. I need to self-justify. I need to turn Jesus into a therapist, so I can be glorified. And then I can live in this view of heaven before the resurrection, that I have in my imagination.”
God says in the bible over 150 times, “Fear not”. If I were to imagine that God is angry with me, I could see this as a very scary command. But He is not angry with me. He loves me so much that he made a way for me in Christ to have a relationship with Him. And one of the many promises that God says in scripture is, “if anyone keeps my word, he will NEVER taste death”. (John 8:51)
Instead of being fearful this week, through faith that God has given me I will walk onto that plane knowing that no matter what happens Jesus is with me “until the end”, that His will for my life is better than the life I would try and live on my own, rest in the fact that the ultimate hope is of a Heavenly Kingdom to come, and rest in the fact that God would not have to say over 150 times “fear not” if no one ever feared something.
If you think about it this week, please pray for us!
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it,to the praise of his glory
Ephesians 1:3-11 ESV
Burris Blunders 