Not

When I first heard the call to step out on the streets in ministry God and I had a lot of conversations about it.

One of us was calm. The other one was me.

I remember one of the conversations quite distinctly. In it, I panic-strickenly listed all the things I was afraid of. I had come up with an exhaustive list that I found quite impressive.

It wasn't so much what He said in His typically brief reply but the way He said it.

Fear NOT.

It was the same reply given so many times in the scriptures. But this time it was different.

In my mind I've always translated that statement into "Do not be afraid." That may be accurate from the Hebrew and Greek, but getting me to dismiss my fears didn't seem to be His goal.

Wrapped up in those two words was a new translation which sounded more like this:

Fear NOT stepping out.
Fear NOT heeding the call.
Fear NOT going places that scare you.
Fear NOT doing this.

And it wasn't about eternal salvation or worldly punishment or somehow losing out on God's love; that is way outside the nature of God and would have just reflected even more of my personal insecurities.

Instead it was more a call to recognizing that the safe, clean, predictable, stable life I'd built was, in reality, a much scarier place than the full, deep, rich, abundant land that He's promised.

He never discounted my impressive list of fears. In fact, as the conversation wound down I felt like if had I not recognized the very real fears it would have been a bigger problem than my listing them for Him.

The earth-sized fears I could see were real. The heaven-sized Fear NOT provided a counterbalance.

And strangely, in that tension between fear and Fear NOT there is peace. It seems to me counterintuitive, but there it is ---- that peace that passes understanding.

Yes, in our conversations One was calm. By the end, the other was moving that way.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, lest we miss Thy kingdom's goal.