Fear of what, exactly?
Why are so many people afraid of expressing themselves? What holds us back from giving full reign to the talents and creativity that God has placed inside us? Fear is a simple explanation, but why are we so afraid of failure? Of the opinions of others? Why does it even matter?
Our lives are an offering, an act of worship, to God. Consider the poor woman who gave her last two coins to the temple, to God. She was left with nothing but total dependence on God – True Faith. So it is with us. Nothing we do is unworthy of God, so long as it done with all of our being, in worship of him. We can do things grandly, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t, but when we do it for the approval of other people, for our own ego or our own selfish desires, we open ourselves to the fear of rejection, or humiliation, or possibly even worse, success. But none of this matters if we do what we do for God. When our actions are nothing but an expression of our love for God, why should we care what anyone else thinks of what we do? After all, God created us, gave us the talents and skills we work with, and no matter how insignificant those talents may be, if they’re used to praise him why would he not like it?
To take an existentialist approach, to be anything other than who you know yourself to be is Bad Faith, a denial of self. I love that existentialism should use a word like Faith to describe identity, since it’s very appropriate I think. True Faith, on the other hand, is life without fear, life where we give full expression to ourselves. As the New Order song of the same name opens:
I feel so extraordinary,
Something’s got a hold of me,
I get this feeling I’m in motion,
A certain sense of liberty.
When we let go and give ourselves the permission to be who we were created to be, the sense of liberty is incredible, transcendent. It is the peace that passes understanding.
God wants our best, and nothing less. But more to the point, he wants us to be ourselves, to be complete, as he created us to be. We will never feel totally at ease until we give full reign to the true self inside us, the identity God places in us. And part of that means giving up the fear and giving full expression to ourselves in Him. No matter how rich or poor our talents are, he gave them to us, and all we can do is offer them back to him in thanks.
Our lives are an offering, an act of worship, to God. Consider the poor woman who gave her last two coins to the temple, to God. She was left with nothing but total dependence on God – True Faith. So it is with us. Nothing we do is unworthy of God, so long as it done with all of our being, in worship of him. We can do things grandly, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t, but when we do it for the approval of other people, for our own ego or our own selfish desires, we open ourselves to the fear of rejection, or humiliation, or possibly even worse, success. But none of this matters if we do what we do for God. When our actions are nothing but an expression of our love for God, why should we care what anyone else thinks of what we do? After all, God created us, gave us the talents and skills we work with, and no matter how insignificant those talents may be, if they’re used to praise him why would he not like it?
To take an existentialist approach, to be anything other than who you know yourself to be is Bad Faith, a denial of self. I love that existentialism should use a word like Faith to describe identity, since it’s very appropriate I think. True Faith, on the other hand, is life without fear, life where we give full expression to ourselves. As the New Order song of the same name opens:
I feel so extraordinary,
Something’s got a hold of me,
I get this feeling I’m in motion,
A certain sense of liberty.
When we let go and give ourselves the permission to be who we were created to be, the sense of liberty is incredible, transcendent. It is the peace that passes understanding.
God wants our best, and nothing less. But more to the point, he wants us to be ourselves, to be complete, as he created us to be. We will never feel totally at ease until we give full reign to the true self inside us, the identity God places in us. And part of that means giving up the fear and giving full expression to ourselves in Him. No matter how rich or poor our talents are, he gave them to us, and all we can do is offer them back to him in thanks.
posted by Andrew Lee at 9:35 PM
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