Disarming Lies: My Unhealthy Fear of God

Sidenote: This was written at 4am, if it doesn't make complete sense, I apologize.

The thought of being in God's presence is usually comforting right? For me, sometimes it is. It is when other people are around. I hate to admit this but sometimes when I think about the nearness of God, i tend to run to my phone, to my dog being with me, and other things, especially when I'm alone at night. I just get kind of freaked out. Weird right because I'm not sure if anyone else feels it. But I think I am here addressing for myself lies that I still believes God in his Mercy and grace are purging right now.

Lies I realized I believe ( at 4am in the morning)

1. God is big and to be feared - yes he sure is. But feared is the word I want to highlight. Because he is so powerful and mighty, there's a part of me that still thinks that God is going to show up in all of his power and that kind of scares me. I don't know why….maybe I associate power with the opposite of care in some fashion. But that is unlike our God. All throughout the OT, especially in Deuteronomy, God constantly reminds them that He fights for them and in His power will carry Israel as a father carries his son. And that He leads into safe places; He is trustworthy and even has a bigger purpose with all the commands and statutes, He gives them all these things in order to reveal the manifold wisdom and understanding of Himself AND show that He is near ( Deut 4:6-8)

2. He will expose me- i keep telling myself that there's no condemnation in Christ. There is none (Rom 8:1). But yet I still feel the guilt and shame of my sin, especially ones tied with those feelings with...unholy sins. HAHA I would love to go into this, so in my mind there are good sins to struggle with and then there's bad sins. Obviously all sin is actually bad in God's eyes but also all sins are covered by the grace of God. That is truth. But in my human limited space and capacity, there are sins that or let's just say struggles that were in my previous church that people would share like… not praying enough and reading enough. Dude totally get it, but there's a part of me that just thinks…. Holy struggle, just do it. While there's struggles like thoughts of lust that are kind of taboo that make me think that … this struggle is something I shouldn't be able to have. But I am writing this to say, whatever the case may be, struggle to read the Bible or to take our thoughts captive, it shows a dependency we may not completely recognize all the time. We ar Christian are dependent on Christ to even do good things for God and godly things just as much as we need Him in the storm of fighting our deepest fears and deep sin issues. It's a human core thing that God has given us the holy Spirit to guard us and keep us because Lord knows how it would be otherwise.

3. God's care is bad- this is the most obvious lie but how often to subconsciously believe it? I'll be the first to admit that maybe a lot of the core motivations for my unhealthy fear or basically not revere God but being scared of him may associate with my early childhood. The way I perceived my parents' care was very different. I believe my actual parents care what do i mean by this? I was a very angry child and I took all the my parents did for me in that lens. This scope and perspective began to transform and taint everything that they did without even knowing it. For instance, a recent example that reflects a deep wound that comes from a mommy/daddy issue is this. I recently got my hair did (yayaya thank you parents , it looks awesome!) Rather than seeing it as a gift from my parents, based on some comments from my mom like - this hair is good for you to take a chance and push yourself out of the comfort zone etc. Rather than seeing the love of pushing boundaries, I saw it as manipulative and my mom wants to form and mold me and control me. Like seriously?! Obviously not her intentions but still subtly my subconscious thoughts. So when god cares for me, there could be doubt that he even does. Well that's a lie because in the bible it's literally his love that compelled him to adopt many as sons and daughters - yup that's me and you if you out your faith in Christ!

4. Lastly, Jesus saves and leaves us- haha actually there are so many verses that proclaim Jesus as the good shepherd, the overseer of our soul, etc. He celebrates us with joy, he died so we could experience His joy and His peace, not as the world gives (John 14:27). Crazy stuff right?! But it's hard for me to feel that type of joy of celebration but i hope the holy spirit can produce that abundant joy that Christ promised.

I think those are my main fears. Haha and yes I am writing this at 4am in the morning because ya girl was parched and needed some water and experienced this unhealthy godly fear. It needed to be addressed and I feel a lot more comfort bringing this to light. Don’t allow feelings of guilt and shame enter our hearts because the enemy constantly tries to hold it over our heads. Disarm these fears by being honest with and then see how the power of the holy spirit can transform unbelief into a stronger faith. It’s crazy how God just writes and uses my words and I pray that it'll be encouraging for those who stumbled across this one :)

[Zephaniah 3:17]

 The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.