Losing my Security

Some days I feel like Linus in the “Peanuts” cartoon strip on washday. His blanket ripped away from him, forcing him to face a harsh world without the security he longs for.

I know I’m not alone.  We all feel like that sometimes.

The key to keeping a sense of Peace it to identify what has taken the “blanket” we’re using. And Why we feel insecure.

This has been my thought pattern reading the second chapter of “The Dream Giver”. Then I put on an audio file of Andrew Wommack’s (I so miss saying a “tape”). He was saying in the teaching something that I hadn’t reached in the chapter yet, but that fits perfectly.

Ordinary feels uncomfortable because he’s where the Dream Giver has directed him to go. When Jesus finishes feeding the 5000, He tells the disciples to get into the boat and cross the lake. Several hours later, they are being thrown around, the boat is sinking and it looks desperate. But they were exactly where God told them to be!

Not every storm is because we’re not where we should be.

Not every lack of comfort is because we’re out of God’s Will.

My quiet time today has been centred around this thought too. It’s taken me a week to write this post because I’ve been struggling.

As I’ve possibly alluded to in the past, I was diagnosed with ADD a few years ago, and I already knew I was a hoarder, but found out 2 years ago the it is a manifestation of OCD. Combine the two and life can be tricky – unless you’re prepared to surrender control to God. Give up the “security blanket” of control.

For me, that has been brutal recently. I hadn’t realised just how much I’ve still kept my security in things. Now I’m back in England, but my belongings for the most part – including Maggie and Sam, my beloved and much missed dogs – are in Cape Town.

I’m in the middle of an emotional storm. And it’s because I’m doing what God told me to do. I didn’t see it coming in all the upheaval of getting ourselves to England, but I’m feeling it now.

Trusting things is decidedly unhealthy, I have realised. Not that I didn’t intellectually know that before this move. But sitting with only 11 DVD sets of “Bones” instead of them, “Angel”, “Stargate”, the “Marvel” movies, “Lord of the Rings” – books as well as discs – and 99% of my Christian reference library including about 9 translations I can’t find online and them not being a ten minute drive away like they were last time I had to move without them has given me a very rude wake-up call.

I’m applying for “traditional” jobs as well at the moment. Not because I feel particularly that I have been “called” to any of them – although I’m targetting things that will be a stimulating challenge for me so I don’t get bored and/or go nuts with frustration – but because not having a job or conventional “purpose” here is frustrating all on it’s own. Employment, while not only beneficial financially, will also help me stay out of my head-space. Which in all honesty has been (with one exception) the reason for me applying for every job I’ve ever had.

But being called out of my comfort zone, although in semi-familiar physical surroundings, is forcing me to look to my “Dream Giver” and ask Him to carry me.

I don’t mind admitting I’m out of my depth right now. I even (usually) include the web address of this journal of musings on my CV. I refuse to do what the “experts” say and not declare my Faith for the sake of getting an interview. It’s going to come up at some point anyway, it may as well be a first impression on paper is my way of looking at it. If any employer is going to reject me because of Christ in me, I don’t think I’d fit in well there anyhow. Been there. Done that.

You’d think at 45 I’d be better equipped. At least more “advanced” after 31.5 years as a Christian. But there’s something I’ve learned – really learned – in the last 32 years:

• God doesn’t leave us where we are when we find Him
• We usually choose to sit in the mud rather than let Him wash us
• Going God’s way is often uncomfortable emotionally
• If I think I can do something easily, it may not be God’s idea – I need to trust Him

So there it is.

We must remember not to look to our own strength, but to Christ in us.

A People Afraid

Fear plays a huge part in life today. It always has in some way or another.

But there’s a new wave now, more alarming than at any time in my life.

Instead of selecting leaders based on their strength of character and courage, we have begun to select them based on their fear-based rhetoric.

Cowardice has become the order of the day. Men and women elected because they personally are terrified of everything.

Oh, they won’t admit it. They claim their position on immigration or terrorism or gun control is coming from their place of strength, but the truth is they are afraid, and they reach out to others who they can build that same fear in.

Fearful leaders are inevitably tyrannical in their rule. Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Saddam Hussain in Iraq, Idi Amin, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Putin, and the most obvious one of all, Adolf Hitler:

Martin Niemoller documents an extreme example of this. He was a German pastor who took a heroic stand against Adolf Hitler. When he first met the dictator in 1933, Niemoller stood at the back of the room and listened. Later, when his wife asked him what he’d learned, he said, “I discovered that Herr Hitler is a terribly frightened man.” Fear releases the tyrant within.

Fearless Chapter 1: “Why Are We Afraid” by Max Lucado

It takes a special kind of person to be so consumed with fear that they can infect an entire nation with it. But it takes special circumstances for that country to be so gullible that they fall for it.

Someone posted on Facebook a few months ago, just after Donald Trump had made his first comments about watching Mosques, registering Muslims and stopping Mexican illegal immigrants, a picture of a bowl of M&Ms. The bowl was huge, the caption read “There are 100,000 chocolates in this bowl. 10 of them will kill you if you eat them. How many will you eat?”

Fearmongering at it’s basest level.Ten out of 100,000. The storyline below went on to say how the refugees were being infiltrated by ISIS terrorists and how as a result none of them could be trusted etc, etc.

And people bought into it.

Christians bought into it.

A Spirit of Fear has gripped the world in a way not seen in 80 years. And it’s tearing the world apart.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.

1 John 4:18

9/11 set in motion a chain of events that has caused the creation of enemies far more deadly than Saddam ever was. George W and Tony Blair flat out lied about the reasons for going into the Gulf War. Thousands of young soldiers on both sides were killed or mutilated as a result. Both men had no military experience personally, something the leaders in the Second World War all had. Perhaps as a result fear was a factor in the decision to go to war. The need to appear strong and decisive in the face of the attack has haunted the globe since.

This week saw a horrific event in Nice, France. Another mass murder by a man it is said was a “radical Islamist”. The events in Europe are increasing, as is the level of fear reported. The Brexit victory was driven by scaremongers who after they won vanished so quickly it was more scary than their win. Apparently they had not considered the possibility of victory, and what to do with it. They just spouted fear-filled rhetoric.

Donald Trump talks of building a wall on the border with Mexico and banning all Muslims from entering the USA. Pure fear talking, but the terrified people respond to it. Recently there have been reports of African-American men being told to “go back to Africa” by whites, who apparently have no clue about why the Black population went to America in the first place – they are simply afraid.

I live in South Africa, a country well known for violence. I’m white, my wife isn’t. After the end of Apartheid legalised interracial marriage – a fear-based ban by a terrified minority – it looked like things would be ok. Fast forward from 1994 to 2016 and I get strange looks from people when I walk with my wife. I generally ignore them.

But Government in South Africa since Mandela has become corrupted by fearful men. Policies have become law that prevent non-Blacks from getting top jobs, or sometimes any job. Instead of investing in the education of the masses the terrified politicians have lined their own pockets and tried to protect their fortunes. The result is increasing crime, unemployment and poverty.

All because of fear.

But the Bible says:

“ For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”” (Romans 8:15)

The phrase “Do not be afraid” appears in some form or other hundreds of times in Scripture. I was once told the count is 365 – once for each day of the year – but I have never counted myself. It does seem to come up a lot though.

The early Church feared the Freedom they had been given Spiritually. Some of them made a return to old sacrificial offerings, others began to insist new converts be circumcised – something that might drive men away from the faith! Paul writes in several of his letters reminding his readers that the Law of the Old Covenant has now been replaced by the Law of Faith in Jesus, and lived his life with no fear of man.

Through the centuries there have been thousands of Christians martyred for their faith. They lived with no fear of men or Man’s laws because they are free in their Spirit. It’s the 21st Century now, and still Christians are persecuted across the world. It takes many forms, from beheadings in the Middle-East to ridicule in the West. Anything that seeks to silence our voice for Christ is persecution.

But the truly fearful people are the ones who seek to silence us, and the ones who allow their voice to be silenced. When Paul was told he would be imprisoned if he refused to stop talking about Jesus, he kept talking. The result was that he then ended up teaching the prison guards about Jesus. Everywhere he went, in every circumstance, Paul talked about his friend, Jesus, who knocked him off his donkey and forgave him for everything.

We need to be the same. Especially in a climate of fear such as we have today.

We are called to be Peacemakers.

Not cowards.