I was turning around on Sand Lake Road that was packed with cars and scurrying tourists and on the radio, a speaker said that fear is a type of worship.
Christian radio is funny. Some of it is great, and some of it is just like secular radio in that it's filled with fear-mongering. This person was explaining that when we fear something, it is because we are actually paying homage to that object, putting that thing above ourselves or letting it dictate what we do. It's a form of worship.
Suddenly I thought of all the fear in my life. I don't want to be anxious for anything, but I am. And that is idolatry. That is giving power to something else, which may be a fact, but ignoring the Truth. The Truth is that I am a child of God and know that God is in control and need to trust that I am provided for. I need to trust the authorities and system and circumstances that I'm in if I am to trust God. If God is in control, then fear is doubting his power or control.
If I'm stuck in the past I am living under the power of things that have happened and not the Thing that is; the great I AM, the God of the living, the God who is in power now. If I am paralyzed by fear of doing the wrong thing than I am putting myself and my choices and my decisions over and above the power of God who will give me what I need to do whatever I need to do. Joyce Meyer said yesterday or the day before on the radio that we have been given what we need to do what we need to do, so if we don't know what we should do, it's probably because we should wait. "God is seldom early, but never late."
It occurred to me in Wendy's that it's not my job to give a million dollars to an orphanage because I don't have a million dollars. This is so simple it's easy to miss. I think people think of what they could do because it's easier than thinking of what they can do.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
I've often been told that the meaning of the word fear is two-fold and that the word has changed since King James. And I think this is true. But I also think that we are to fear the Lord. Dr. J. Vernon McGee, the common-sense Dr. Philiest Christian radio Will Rogers/Mark Twain guy, says at TTB.org, every single day- that we need to do what God says, not try to fix ourselves with courses or rationalizations or our own thinking. It starts with admitting that although we know some things, God knows more and He's not our buddy. The word awe has also changed. Awe has slipped over into awful; the terrifying aspect of fear- and from there it's been watered down to mean something disgusting or unsettling. But something that is truly awful or aweful is getting our attention and our fear. We're scared of something bigger than us.
The most common thing great beings say to humans in the Bible is not to fear. Yet we are commanded to fear God, not look at Him and try to be as holy as possible in His presence. Again, the concept of Parent comes in to play. The role of the child is to listen and be loved. I'm trying to remember when I was in awe of my parents. I think I always knew that I was just like them, but younger and less experienced. There must have been a time that I didn't know that; before language certainly if not up until eight, but I have no memory of that. This is a fundamental disrespect for authority. I think we all have it, but most of us remember when we didn't. I don't remember being disillusioned that my parents weren't all-powerful. I just remember as if it was constant- the disappointment that we all are.
The Father relationship is helping me to come to grips with what God is. But it's only part of the picture. I can become a father. And thinking about that has also helped me understand God. But I can't become the Father that is God. I can choose to follow, but I can't choose whether or not to breathe his air. I can choose to listen, but I can't make my own lungs (as J. Vernon McGee pointed out a week or so ago).
Recently there was in the news a story about a woman who was placed in a coffin and then woke up. She screamed and her relatives broke into the grave and took her to the hospital and then she died. Now that's awful. There are a lot of awful things in the world and I tend to have one of them on my mind.
Last night I dreamt about that one. Here is the dream as much as I could capture; since the laptop is on and right near me when I wake up:
Friday January 15, 2016
I am walking along from outside to inside a barnlike structure that has a black dirt floor. There is a pile of office chair wheels there; about 20 of them. A black lady, professional, is sitting in the room, going throush the black dirt she has before her on her desk, in a wooden box, looking at what seems to be pieces of shells, off-white almost whole spiral shells about as big as a quarter. I am with someone else, a co-worker and we ask what the pile of wheels is there for. The black lady in that room says that she thinks the room used to be used for a prayer group here at our work and I think that she is making a roundabout comment about the inappropriateness of religion in the workplace by inferring that a bunch of fat yeasty white women sat around and broke their chairs, and I thought this was ridiculous and couldn't be the explanation because why would anybody just leave their broken office chair wheels sitting there, in a pile in the black dirt, a little way away from the floor of the room, much less about 20 times, since that many wheels are there now?
I mention this to my co-worker as we leave that room and the black lady behind. We go into another room and talk about what the black lady had been doing back there. The person I'm with says that those were not shells. And then the person is actually the lady who was working with those items, and she has them with her and knows all about them. She explains that there is a study going on by Columbia University of these items, which I can see in front of me now, are little round plastic hard disks. They look like fake ivory. She explains that they are not plastic, but actual nipples taken from a men's ruby team without much pain, by using a pistol. I laugh uncomfortably and don't see how this could be. I am with a little cousin, looks like Danyse about six years old. It is explained that there is a solution of liquid put on each one as an experiment, many times over the years and that data is recorded and and it's important for science. I want to know about the men without a nipple. I say this is important. Beauty is all about symmetry. Did they grow their nipples back? Is there just a blank spot where the nipple was? Danyse, picks up one and we're touching them now, but they seem so un-flesh like, such a hard plastic, and she isn't sure what a nipple is. She puts it up to her belly button and realizes that's not where it comes from, then figures it out and puts it down in funny disgust.
I start to think of the true life story where the lady in South America wakes up in her coffin and screams after being buried, is taken out, taken to the hospial and died later and I decide I need to tell my family not to bury me except without doing something to make sure I'm really dead or will die quickly if I wake up. Stuff my mouth and nose full of cotton, or place me in the ground without a coffin and fill it up with dirt, making it impossible to breathe. I realize there is family around and run into the room to tell them, but it is just that black lady who knew about the nipples and I don't know if I should tell her or not, and wake up anxious.
In the dream I am at work but not working, there is a university study going on and in both situations I am close to authority but not submitted to it. I question the validity of the only semi-authority figure in the dream. Her opinion about the wheels laying there seems ridiculous. I assume she doesn't want faith in the work or academic worlds and that she's going to a lot of work for nothing.
I'm reading the work of Arnold Ehret (29 July 1866 – 10 October 1922) and think that in a few remarkable cases, the body heals itself through a fast and since the advent of the coffin those people wake up into the hell of being trapped; which may or may not be followed up by going to Hell. Is there anything worse?
There's the phrase dead ringer, and before the embalming process.... well, I don't want to think about it.
This is current fear of mine; not of death, but awakening into being trapped in a coffin- well it is not something I need to think about. It could be the basis for zombie and vampire lore, and it could be another reason just to bury people in the dirt and not fill the earth with chemicals and wooden boxes. But I'm not engaging in burial reform or studying the undead.
The current fear is giving worship, or power, or control, or magnifying- a terrible thought that is a possibility. Whether or not the fear is possible, there is no good reason to give it this power.
The other day TTB.org's J. Vernon McGee says a man is supposed to worship his wife. Are we supposed to fear our wives? I don't think so. I think worship is giving honor, praise, recognizing status, etc. And that's what we're supposed to give to people and ultimately God- not to thoughts and choices and perplexing conundrums. Worry, anxiety, fear- is all idolatry. It's putting the circumstance above Providence; the pride of place in making the right decision yourself above the system God has created, and the idol of the way things could be or could have been above and more important than now.
All we ever have is now.
All we ever have is God made. Genesis 1 is a very small introduction to the past. It encapsulates 2 thousand to 200 million years. According to McGee again, the words about the past are so few because it's not important. The story of man, and the story of the Man Christ are what is important. That's why the whole thing telescopes into so much information about his last three days. The story gets faster and faster and faster until the Passion, which is layed out before us in four ways. Two words or three describe the creation of galaxies and then whole chapters describe a day.
This is leading us to now. We are now. In this moment we can choose to acknowledge that Christ is working currently, alive after living here on this planet awhile, or we can see only ourselves; our problems or our successes or just us. Is it just us, or is it Justice? Is it I am or is it I AM?
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