Transparencies
Fear Not!
You know….I’ve thought a lot about the issue of “fear” over the years. God’s message to us in scripture and almost every encounter with Godly angels recorded seems to begin with the line “Fear Not!”. Our culture seems to equate “wisdom” with “caution” and I don’t think that’s what God means it to be at all. I’ve said and thought and prayed many times in my life that I would rather live fully for 10 minutes - without fear - than for decades with a fearful shrinking spirit. I’m not saying that’s where you are at all, but is definitely IS where I would be if I did not continually reject the fearful thoughts and messages that we are fed each day. It really isn’t about what I can or can’t do so much - it’s more about learning to live at a new level of trust. I know full well that I can’t do much in my own strength. I can’ never be more than a child helping her daddy. But all the things that bind us to our fears. Security, approval, stuff, health - I think God just wants us to release those things - not because they don’t matter to him, but because the world is consumed with them and he wants us to devote ourselves to him, his voice, His kingdom etc. Releasing the fear is really releasing those things and falling into His arms, knowing that whatever happens we are his. Stepping out into the adventure that He wants us to live can’t happen when we are tied to the opinions and things that we think make us who we are. And those opinions and things tether us and keep us from becoming what our heart desires - It’s like a self fulfilling prophecy. We think we can’t - so we don’t even try. There is a steady stream from the world that we MUST do so many things - when really the only thing we need to do is listen to that still small voice and obey the godly longings in our spirit. It seems so cliche, in our “Christian” culture to say the “Perfect love casts out all fear”, but it really is at the heart of it all. I’ve come to the point where I don’t even focus on the fears - I just want to focus on the Love of the Father. Years ago I began writing a song that comes to mind now - never finished it, but have been thinking about doing so lately….
Worshipping you is better than food to eat
Worshipping you is better than air to breathe
Worshipping you I come and i fall at your feet
You’re better than life
Worshipping you is better than the favor of man
Worshipping you, you give more than anyone can
Worshipping you i come bringing all that I am
You’re better than life
I will come into your throne room
I will tell my heart “be still”
Come fill me up till there is no room
For anything else but your will
That’s what I want. To be so full of the Love of the Father that there is no room for fear. The fear is pushed out by the Love. Everything we fear is temporary and powerless and impotent compared to Him and His love for us and His kingdom. We are eternal, eternally loved, eternally alive, eternally cherished, eternally cared for by the king of the universe. How does anything I fear compare to that. In light of it nothing is even worth the time it takes to think about it.
Of course all that is really idealistic and the details of our lives, bills - phone calls - stress in relationships - physical issues do not go away just because we are God’s. However they are just details that spring from living in this dimension - in this temporary body. When we take a longer look they look smaller and smaller - until they go out of focus as we look to a horizon of wonderful loving kinship with God and each other. They are here, but they are eclipsed.
Quote Of The Day
“Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, ou and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually.” Frederick Beuchner - excerpt from “Telling Secrets”.
Trey Dennison - Grandson #3. At 5 months he has had to be a fighter to keep on breathing and living. Born with a diaphramic hernia and lungs crowded and under developed, he has struggled to thrive and we have had to fight for him and with him. Delayed physically - but not at all intillectually or emotionally. God has something planned for this little man. We wait with bated breath to see what he will become.
Braeden Kyle - Grandson #2 and the blonde caveman. At two he is a force of nature, a man child who is an amazing little man. What an adventure to watch this one become more of who we see already.
Joli Paige - Grand child #2. My little snuggle bug. So like her mom in so many ways. Emotions run very near the surface in this one but she will gather herself into my lap and bury herself in my heart and I am borne away to Grandma land - a place of sheer bliss.
Micah Chase - Grandsoon #1. Avid Reader. Third Grade Scholar. Artist in the making. Sensitive and loving. I’m proud to be his grandma.
Mate to my darling Elfin and wonderful Dad to my grandkids - this is Cliff. Or Clifford Dennis Kyle Morgan to be more accurate. Cliff is at this very minute holding down the fort at Children’s Hospital where little Trey (to be introduced lastest but not leastest) is struggling his way back from pneumonia. I’m glad to be his mom in law - and to have him in the clan.
Youngest daughter and #3 is Miss Bree. I see Jim in her. I see me in her. I see Jesus in her. She’s the young blood in the band and a joy to have around.
Daughter #2 is Elfin. Mother of all my grand children so far. The creative gene runs strong in this one as well. Singer. Better than me. Strong and fiery. Writer. A real blend of Jim and me and my dear mother, JoAnn.
Lorien is daughter #1 - first born - child of my youth. She is the only one who still lives on the left coast. She visits occasionally though and we talk from time to time. But the clan has a Lorien shaped void here in Texas. Sigh. She is also a musician and song writer - a graphic designer and creative type.
