I've been running for a very long time. Running from my tormenting fears. Running from persecution, from being rejected, and from being yelled at. For majority of my life, I stood in silence to obtain comfortability. Every time someone has gone against me even when speaking the truth I would run. My heart and mind said I don't want to be around them. I don't want to fight and be beaten for someone else who treats me wrongly because it hurts so bad. I don't like or want confrontation because I don't want to be talked down to. I don't want any of these things because I would rather control my fears. I get angry, bitter, wanting to tell off those who hurt me. I don't want to do things for them because it hurts so bad. Because of my family abuse done verbally, I did these very things to cope with these fears. If I spoke I wasn't accepted. If I didn't follow along with what others wanted of me I was told something is wrong with me. Rejected and silenced. Not received when I spoke up. The input of my words led to screaming, fighting and confrontation so I then continued to live in silence. The best solution I had was to cut those that hurt me or not speak to them. I stopped building a relationship to not get hurt or shut out. I lived my entire life this way whether it was friends or family. I never spoke about what hurt me to anyone because I felt I wasn't allowed to. I was afraid to. Now the controlling of my fears trickled into my walk with Christ. Fleeing from the scene when the going gets tough to avoid rejection. Fleeing from speaking the word of God to avoid being yelled at, to avoid further building in a relationship with those who have. I didn't really want to speak the truth in love if I was just gonna be rejected for it. I did not like feeling uncomfortable to speak because of the fear of not being received.
But who am I as a child of God to get in the way of someone else's salvation. Who am I to run from someone that needs the truth, that needs the word of God, that needs revelation of the life they've been living. To do this for their sake, for their freedom, and not for my own. Who am I to stop the plans of God. To stop the uncomfortable situations, to prevent the crushing God has for me to grow and go from glory to glory in His likeness and image. Who am I to preserve myself and my comfortability to not be the vessel used to pursue someone in love.
We are called to take the beatings, the persecution and the hardships just as Christ did for us so that we would not perish. He did this so that we can walk in the freedom He paid for. He was beaten so that we would be made whole. Our lives in Christ cannot be easy if His was not. His love has continuously pursued us. If His love is poured out upon us and in us there is no fear of rejection, persecution, or lack of acceptance. Perfect love casts out all fear therefore there's no fear and being there for those who go against us. There is no fear in helping those that cast us down because we rely on the love of God. We stand because the righteous cannot be shaken. We stand because of the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.
If the old has gone and the new has come why do we continue to live in the old that has gone? If we are new creations in Christ, why do we react as if we live in the past? Because we are afraid. We are afraid to accept God's crushing and refining in us. Afraid to let go of the comfortability we created because of our traumas. We control our situations to prevent the trauma from resurfacing because we don't want feel pain anymore. We want to run away from new situations so we don't remember the past or relive it.
But dear brothers and sisters these fears are not reality. The reality is Ephesians 1 that we have been redeemed and accepted. We are accepted in the beloved. We must live in His grace and truth that everything has been hung on the cross by the price He paid. We live knowing who we are in Him and why we are called. We are called as disciples which does not mean we preserve ourselves yet speak a few scriptures. We give all of ourselves. We give up all of our fears, worries, doubts, and our way of living that we built up in exchange for how Christ has lived for others. The great commission will be a journey but it starts with the end of ourselves and in that there is true freedom. Freedom from all bondage that so easily entangles us as we continue to die to ourselves daily.
