If you follow the blogs of anyone who works at Adventures In Missions, you probably know that every Monday morning we start our work week off with an hour or so of worship together. The whole staff gets involved, there’s a revolving door of worship leaders each bringing their own gifts and flavor, there are prophetic teams and prayer teams, and a huge open space to shout it out for the Lord.
This morning found us singing
From my mother’s womb
You have chosen me
Love has called my name
I’ve been born again
Into your family
Your blood flows through my veinsI’m no longer a slave to fear
I am a child of God
Over over we sang the chorus until it finally sank in. The Lord was speaking, and it was directly to me.
You see, for the last while my life has been marked with trepidation and anxiety. If I’m being honest it started when I moved from Kentucky to Georgia. It’s been plaguing me since I gave my vow to marry The Professor. Maybe it’s a generational curse type thing, maybe it’s a lifetime of being convinced no one will ever love me- or stay. Maybe it’s something else entirely. But that’s when it all started.
This is also about the time I stopped asking the Lord everything. Or sharing everything with Him. And the further I felt from Him, the less I sought Him out. And consequently the more fears and anxieties I’ve experienced. I’ve had two full-blown panic attacks in the last year and a half, one of which was just last week.
Something needs to change.
A person can’t live like this.
And you know what? We’re not meant to. Here’s what God revealed to my isolated, stubborn, do-it-myself heart:
I will take away your fear.
But I won’t take away your circumstances. I will part the Red Sea, but you still have to walk through it, with the roaring, teeming, rushing waters towering above you on all sides.
People still have the power to mock, or to judge, or to laugh at you.
But I will take away their power to affect you. I will take the fear from the circumstances so that when you face them, you will be known as My Daughter, and your actions and your courage will reflect Me, and not your circumstances.
You still may never have children. Your health could be in danger. You may lose loved ones along the way, or treasures, or trust. You may be betrayed. You might still have to climb the tree or pass near the edge of the cliff. But I take away your fear.
My perfect love for you and of you casts out all fears, so that the situation which once seemed so daunting is now harmless.
Wow. All I have to say is Yes and Amen to that. I always assumed when He said He’d take away fear that He would also take away the thing that incites the fear- like, maybe I won’t have to say that honest and hard thing, or maybe I won’t have to do that awful task. But that’s not how it goes at all. I still must face all those things, but I can rest in the peace that surges in when fear dissipates. Yes I can.
And so can you.
Perfect love casts out fear. And His love is perfect. Perfect, perfect.
–Andi
