Freedom from fear

"And the LORD is the One who goes ahead of you;

He will be with you.  He will not fail or forsake you.

Do not fear or be dismayed."

(Deuteronomy 31:8)

I have been faced with a hard realization over the past several days.  It has been frustrating, humiliating, saddening ... while at the same time, extremely monumental.  For whatever reason, now is the time God has chosen to cause me to look back.  To look back over the many things in my life that have not happened as I thought they would.  He caused me to look back over missed opportunities, lost desire, and all-out moments of giving up.  

And then He revealed to me why some of these things happened.

Because in some instances ... I chose to give fear the upper hand.

Fear of failure.  Fear of being let down.  Fear of defeat.  Fear that I hadn't really heard Him.  Fear that I would make a fool out of myself.  And so on ... 

I want to be very careful to explain something.  God is not causing me to look back on these realizations so that I will succumb to a life of defeat and regret.  Instead, He is causing me to look back so that I will choose today to victoriously move forward in faith, purging fear to the wayside.  This is how I believe we know it is Him doing the prodding in our spirit.  Because He does not bring our failures or moments of disbelief to our minds to cause us to sink into a pit of discouragement and destruction.  Rather, He does this with the motive of Ephesians 1:18-20 in mind ... To build us up!

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.  These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places."  

God uses His Word to build us up that we may have the courage to walk confidently in the direction He is calling us.  He desires us to cling to Him for our courage, believing that He will provide the strength we need when our hearts desire is to obey Him.  The kind of obedience that ultimately turns the attention away from ourselves and shines light on His life-changing Power.  When we realize that truly is what His calling on our lives is all about, we will experience an immense amount of freedom ...     

Freedom from fear.