Tonight I had a nightmare that woke me up. Once I was awake I couldn't fall back asleep because I was scared. Typically when this happens I say a prayer and my fears alleviate and I fall back asleep. Such was not the case tonight. I fervently prayed for God to help me overcome my fear, but my fear remained. I finally reached a point that I realized I was just asking for God to do something for me because I needed it, and in the morning I'd say "Hey, thanks." and move along with my life until the next nightmare. So I began to pray that I would actively change this aspect of myself. That I would begin to actively seek him and have a two way relationship with him, us talking to each other rather than me just talking to Him. My fear remained. So I turned on the light, and found my Bible (sadly, after a little searching). As I opened it I turned to the Concordance and looked up "fear." I was expecting things along the line of "Perfect love drives out fear" - feel good fuzzy junk. What I found was that most passages on fear refer to fear of the Lord. Not so strong on the fuzzy warm feelings. So I get to thinking, 'hey - I'll just get started on reading John since I'm starting a Bible study on that.' I open my bible and my book marker is in Lamentations so it automatically falls open there. 'All right. Not my first choice but we'll give it a shot.' As I'm reading about how Judah has divorced herself from God, I hear this small voice. It said,
"THIS is how I communicate with you."
That's the moment it all ended for me. In that moment I knew that in my past I had chosen to divorce myself from Christ and it was time to remember, as the author does in chapter three,
"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness."
Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV
It is in these truths, that God is a force to be Feared and a God that does not give up on me, that I will choose to find my rest in.
