Love and Fear

What in the world or galaxy is this fear she speaks of?I pretend to not understand

She talks of it as a bad thing

The only association my emotions counsel me with is another kind of fear

That of falling

Falling in dreams ends in kicking of chairs and wide eyes

Up in the sky and daydreaming ends in that diaphragm clenching gut curling blaze

Oh I have fear

That of falling

That kind of “fear” that comes with falling

But falling deeper from like to love and hopefully into her arms

If we fall for and in love then what is to say that fear has no part in it?

To fall for love is more noble than our fear; why is it then ruled by a lesser master?

This deadly semantic runs wild with our future and threatens to dispose of love and replace it with a fear that debilitates and is not love

Will anything but LOVE do?

Heavens and anything below, NO

A fear of light is absurd

Masking love and itching a collar borne by fear is less than ideal

When love rules and has a gut wrenching fear caused by the falling sensation that is falling in love then we can rest easy

Hasn’t every great thing come with a little bit of uneasiness and possible wide eyes and kicking of chairs?

Use those gut muscles to propel forward and when we need fear no longer

 we will laugh from the top

It’s hard to lie to your heart.

It’s hard to lie to your heart. That doesn’t stop us from trying it all the time.

Our mind is a complex beast. The conscious is aware of the immediate. We realize we are thinking on this platform. All the while, the subconscious plots and roves about gathering and processing information. Even in sleep, he does not rest. The subconscious is constantly making analyses without our permission and changing our physiology as a result. When our body feels fear, the sympathetic nervous system kicks in and our heart races as sweat starts coming out of our pores. It has a better memory than we realize and causes most of the deja vu, superstition, and intuition we take credit for.

Our heart speaks to us. Although we say heart, it might be better called subconscious. Never mind what it is really, we will just call it the heart. Sometimes we find ourselves living a life that doesn’t seem to sit right. We find ourselves constantly at odds with, ourselves. For all intelligent logical reasons, we should be happy and content. It could be a job, a choice we need to make, or a relationship. We don’t need to look too much further than our own heart when it comes to knowing what makes us happy.

So why do we get stuck in these situations where we find ourselves fighting our own heart. We just don’t believe our heart I suppose. In our conscious, we think and come up with what makes the most sense. We have just forgotten to add in one key ingredient, our heart. It seems to already know what we want before we do.

Character of God: Part I

I’m going to make an attempt at throwing out some thoughts on the true nature of God. This is obviously a massive topic and undertaking, I know. This is most likely part 1 in a 70 part series.  But I really believe that our God is accessible and comprehensible (to a degree). Often a polarizing view of God is found in the New and Old Testament.  Through a quick analysis of the two we can break down a few parts of God’s character. This is a topic I have thought about many times. It is also a topic I find practical because of the real power contained in an authentic understanding of God’s nature.  It has been important to my mortal experience, so I deemed it worthy of sharing.

Old testament: Brings us the idea that God is angry and exercises vengeance on his children similar to the Greek gods did to their subjects. Stories like the man who tried to steady the Ark of the Covenant and was struck dead on the spot are hard to relate to and seem to contradict what we think of as a loving God. This is the Old Testament God that gave the Israelites the strict Law of Moses commanding them to abide or die. This is the same God that was angry with a prophet and so caused him to be swallowed by a whale. Is this our God?

New Testament : God is love. God is merciful. And he has provided a plan. His plan revolves around his resolve to incorporate us into the fabric of heaven. In love he sends his son, Jesus Christ, being the main character of the NT, to complete his father’s plan as he dies and is resurrected in the events of the Atonement. The New Testament is the removal of the Law of Moses and its subtle and overlooked replacement with the law of consecration. This is the God that is still strict, but appears to have softened with time.

As I have read the scriptures, studied, and prayed, God’s personality has solidified somewhat for me. If you have made it this far, past my semi-sarcastic and slightly informal recap of roughly 6,000 years of holy writ, then you must understand that I am just someone who is trying to figure it out too. I’m not someone who has all the answers or knows some secret, but just a guy who loves God, wants to be better, and claims discipleship.

God is that same God from the Old testament and the one we also find in the New.  He is both. Just as loving as he is strict. As fair as he is powerful.  He is all of these things, but an overarching principle of his character is again, his unwavering love for us, his creations.

God is our best friend. I believe that with all my heart. First of all, he is this. Of course, all of his titles explore his different roles to us like Heavenly Father or Lord. It is important however to view him as our advocate and best friend also. Have you ever been on your knees praying at night and felt embarrassed? There was something that you did that day that you weren’t proud of and for a moment you forgot that God knows everything and you tried to act like everything was perfect between you and God? Imagine your best friend of best friends. Then multiply that person’s capability of being a best friend by 20 million and we get close to God’s abilities. There is nothing that we can say or do to God that would cause him to stop loving us. Nothing!  He is there to support and guide us, not just  to keep track of  our good and bad deeds. If we are open and honest with God, in those moments, we become teachable and our potential for goodness expands. There should never be any kind of fear in our communication with God. Of course, I’m sure he can get disappointed in us, but he never gives up on us. He has the luxury of being perfect. This is why sometimes after I have sinned or messed up, I am scared to talk to him again and think that if I wait a day then everything will be okay. No! He wants us to talk to him in those moments. Immediately.

Summary: God is our best friend. We should never be afraid of him. We should seek him in hard times.

Romans 8:15-17

15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Vulnerability

Ever heard of fight or flight? Most animals are amazing at this defense tactic, with humans being no exception. With life being as harsh as it is, we need some way to cope and handle the pressure on us as individuals. Each one barraged by life’s situations and others judgments. It would seem that it might be easier for us to just hole up and make it through life in a bomb shelter.

Does that feel right? Did I exaggerate a bit to make a point? No, yes respectively. I would offer a better defense mechanism that could allow people to experience full relationships and experience self-confidence. It comes from a Ted Talk by Brené Brown that I have watched many times and thought about many times over. Vulnerability. The central idea being that pain and shame come from the same place that love originates.

Putting our hearts on the line can lead in a few different directions. It can lead to it being swiftly crushed. Aren’t hearts meant to be protected? Encased in a cage of bones, it would defy our instinct to let it be seen, even handled. The problem with our instinct is that it cheats us of real opportunity. I mean opportunity for real love and real relationships.

If someone can truly master the art of being vulnerable, they have an opportunity to truly love someone. Without this, I would argue that one couldn’t have a full relationship. True, the opportunity for pain is real as well. But I would trade sporadic pain for the capability of loving any day.

Consider what areas of your life you aren’t vulnerable. What part of your life you are self-conscious about, that you are ashamed of, that you try and hide, or that you aren’t giving all of yourself to? Vulnerability can be the key to confidence, happiness, and love if we let it.