A discussion on LOVE   

"Pioneer" Publications   

Beths Stories::

Fear and Knowledge of Who You Are

Recently I was sent an e-mail with a set of statements that gave some sort of diagnosis of the character and the personality of the reader. They would then know a bit more about themselves, or they would be able to determine just who they were in the sight of the author. I was a bit amazed at some of the accuracy of the author's comments.

I have not read his book nor have I ever heard of him. But is subsequent e-mails between this friend and her friends, I began to see some disturbing things. I was amazed at this trend in Christian literature. Now don't get me wrong there is serious literature and there is what I call "good props under chair legs types." This came from my propensity to use books for everything but standing on a shelve. I have used ones that I felt were just a good way to make money from Christians as objects to prop up uneven legs of chairs or missing legs of chairs, as I once had a very comfortable easy chair that was minus one leg that was easily repaired with three books that fell into this category.

The trend that disturbs me is people taking for "God's Gospel" works by the people who write books. There is a lot of truth out there that is being exploited by authors to unconsciously and selfishly meet their motives. In recent years, about the last twenty I would say there has arrived on the scene a plethora of books that serve to make money for the author or to make a name for the author or that serve to meet the needs of the authors ministry in some way.

There are several factors that the reading public fails to acknowledge when they either buy or read or pass on to others who are interested in this type of literature. The first factor I see is the "Fear of the Lord." There is a true fear of the Lord that is firmly founded in the passionate Love of the Lord, and then there is the substitute that binds them to a fear of discovery through and in the Lord.

The second sort of "fear" leaves one with no where to go to really find out who they are. I am not talking of people who don't believe there is a God who has a Son, who lives and rules with Him, and soon will return for those that He knows. I am talking of those who sincerely experienced the saving Grace of the Lord, and attend church and are involved in some way in the community that this Grace provides.

There are all sorts of symptoms that tell you these folks are still seeking to find who they are in Christ. The first is that they do not have the rudimentary form of the disciplines of life in the Lord. Their prayer life is a once a week thing at church or home group. They do not tolerate silence, rarely sing and dance with the Lord, and for the most part they rarely open their Bibles which is one of their only offensive weapons. They essentially exhibit a "Peter Pan" sort of mentality that says they will be eternally babes in Christ feeding on milk that is provided by the elders of their spiritual life.

One of the most disturbing symptoms is a statement I hear all the time. "I don't hear God, or the Lord." I want to scream at them… "WHY NOT"! Jesus is not a liar and He says His sheep KNOW His voice! A child is not born knowing the voice of his Father. He learns that voice by being around it and calling upon its care and love and tenderness. As the father responds then the child begins to trust and develop a sense of knowing who that person is what they will provide and how to simply enjoy their presence. Soon the child and the father both know each others voices and can respond to each other even if they don't see each other in a crowd. They know each other because they hear the voice and love motivates a response.

There is a fear that is based in love that says "I am coming as soon as I determine where you are…keep talking to me father, here am I, Oh how wonderful to enjoy your company again!" There are variations on a theme in the response of the heart to the love of the Father, and our Lord and His Holy Spirit. But all of them spring out of the soul of a person who has passion about the BEING of our God!

To tell me you don't hear is simply not truth. I believe that you hear but don't respond for whatever reason. And most of that is fear of what will happen when you respond to a Father you essentially cannot see. But that was one of the purposes of the incarnation of the Lord. And the extension of that thought is the actual writing of the Word of God by the Apostles, Prophets, and poets and other authors. The removal of the type of fear that hinders the knowing of the Creator of the universe was a direct motivation of the writing of the Bible.

And the third leg of that thought is the art of communication with this "superior being." We have come to call this communication "prayer." If we essentially see it as talking with God, then it is not only a special time thing, but it is a daily exercise that is involved in all that you do.

I have sat and listened to my girl when she was small, as she talked to her dollies and her dog and to herself as she played. My grandchildren were the same. It comes out as a sort of monologue on their life as it is happening. My daughter now says her girls argue over imaginary toys, and wonders why they don't just imagine another one. This is the sort of thing I am talking about. This is very simplistic but essentially it is the art of communication with God. Many times it is simply stating the obvious to God by addressing him as I go along.

For example, I was shooting black birds that were eating my birdseed and scaring off all the pretty little birds I wanted to look at. I had a small 22 cal pistol that was a single shot that the safety was a half-cock with the hammer. As I dropped the pistol down I thought I had put it on safety but instead I just served to shoot the thing and literally shot myself with rat shot in the foot. My first words were, "Oh God, I just shot myself in the foot!" I heard the Lord laugh and say, "yes you did!" I learned that one needs to pay attention when they have a pistol in their hand. I'm twenty years from that incident and still occasionally a small pellet of leads surfaces for removal. BUT.. I heard HIS voice! And it took the fear of what I had done out of the situation.

Was that because I was some sort of super-spiritual person? NO! It was because the Lord said I would hear His voice, and I cultivated His friendship and spent time talking to Him and in very simple communication let Him know what was going on. I realize it is childlike but that the Lord can Bless!

So what has all this to do with who we are. If we are looking at others to tell us who we are then we are looking at another created one to tell us what only the Creator know for certain.

Now there is general knowledge to the character of men and their personalities. That is often revealed in the Word of God. In fact the negative descriptions we see in Proverbs and the Epistles are often used as diagnostic tools in counseling. We can even take a test that shows the "thumb print" of God on our lives. Certainly wise people who are used by God in the Prophetic can tell us a bit more by their gifting. But isn't there a way to really know who and what you are? Yes there is … BUT… you have to move past the connivance of the generalities of authors and the small glimpses of a Word out of the mouth of the Prophetic. You have to determine that the presence of GOD is a worthy pursuit and then get off your bottoms and pursue! (Quite simply put) If you are moved by fear to being static or ignorance by not reading or loneliness by not trying fellowship, then you will find that the words of these books become a sort of Bible in themselves. They offer to you something you have not gotten from the source.

This then brings with it two sorts of deception. The first is that you have nothing to compare what your read to. You do not know the real article and then cannot judge the Holy from the profane. Here in the Ukraine the market people know a forged note simply because they have felt the real things many times, everyday over and over. So when something appeals to what little you know of Truth you will swallow the whole camel.

The second deception is that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. We as a people perish for the lack of knowledge. We never move pass the human fear factor to find the fear factor that is based in the Love of the Lord. We find that the difficulty of the pursuit and the consumption of what we know by Him so that truth is ultimately revealed to us to be more than we really bargained for. Somehow we feel that it will just "FALL" on us because we accepted Him as Lord. We do not expect that from people we know, but from the God we belong to we feel that it is a right that we have just because He is God. But from Genesis the fellowship between our God and his creation is one that is in development for our whole life. It is not a one time confession that gives us all the world.

Fortunately for us it requires a lifetime of endeavor and enjoyment. It is no different than growing up with your earthy Dad. As you change so does his fellowship with you change. So it is in the Kingdom of our Dear God! But to interact with Him requires contact and time and communication and the fear born of passion for the Love only He can bestow.