THOUGHTS ON… faith and fear and hiding hogs
…and all the people in that region begged Jesus to go away and leave them alone…
Luke 8:37
…the crowds received Jesus with open arms because they had been waiting for Him.
Luke 8:40
I sat before the fire this morning with a cup of steaming tea in one hand and my Bible in my lap. Groggy from sleeping too late, restless and needing real rest, I felt all unsettled inside.
The words caught me.
The story of a whole town pressuring Jesus to leave after He’d done good— rid a crazy man of his demons.
Why weren’t they okay with that?
And then right up against that question, rose the story of a whole town pressing in around Jesus for help and healing.
How did they know?
On one side of the lake an immense crowd gathered to beg Jesus to go away. To leave them alone.
On the other side of that same lake, equally insistent crowds waited with open arms to invite Him right into the midst of their stories.
Why?
Why would one person push Him away and another pull Him close?
And aren’t I just a little spiritually bi-polar too?
On some things down right rigid in my strict adherence to His Word…
and on others clearly disobedient and mostly unapologetic.
Why do I ramp up the intensity of my words in order to get my own way… when I well know that what God relishes in a woman is a gentle and quiet spirit?
Why do I lay awake at night worrying about my kids… when He has so clearly stated that He loves them with a greater love than I could ever grasp?
And why can’t I help myself? Why don’t I stop?
Fully awake now, I scoot forward, lay aside my tea and sniff around these stories. What I find gives me much more than a caffeine jolt.
The ones who wanted Him away were afraid. Not of the stark naked, demon filled, manic man who broke through chains and dominated the countryside. They were used to him. Had it under control.
What scared them witless was Jesus’ undeniable power to bankrupt their undercover pig operation. Here was a kosher Jewish town making a killing on hogs.
They had a secret that Jesus knew about and they thought by pushing Him out of the picture they could keep stockpiling all that lovely stash without the whole world knowing.
And maybe I have secrets too. Secret pride. Secret fears. Secret things that feel safe to me. And I don’t want Jesus to have anything to do with my hog business.
Mmh.
Then there’s the other guys. They welcomed Jesus. Held open their arms and fairly wrestled Him into their lives.
A leader fell flat on his face before Jesus, blithefully ignorant of what everyone else might think. His daughter was dying and by golly this guy was going to do everything in his power to get the help he needed to save her.
He was desperate.
A woman grabbed onto the tassle at the bottom of His robe and held on for dear life, stopping Jesus’ journey through the crowds. Nothing and nobody was going to stop her from getting from Him what she wanted more than life itself. Weak and weary and tired of the isolation of illness, this woman would go down in history for her insistence that Jesus help her.
She was sick of being sick.
I think there’s a treasure to be unburied in these side-by-side stories.
Something about fear and faith. And how you can’t have both. One cancels out the other.
Faith overrides fear and fear deletes faith.
I chew on this all day. Keep coming back to the stories. What am I missing?
I don’t want to be a bi-polar believer.
Moving from crisis to crisis, one season all good and peace-filled and other’s centered…
Too soon swinging to anxious, overwrought, ready to burst into tears because life is hard and how come that happened and why me?
Jeez.
And while I am praying and seeking and wondering, words jump out at me:
Faith.
Peace.
Believe.
Trust.
I know those words. And I know something else—
that the life I long for cannot be had as long as I insist on holding God to my way…
and
the life I long for is mine for the taking if I’ll only refuse the fear by fully entrusting every single teeny tiny facet of my life to Him.
Everything. Everyone. Fully.
And so I get up to face my day with three treasures tucked into my heart, stored in my mind, settled into my soul…
1. It’s usually when I’m up against death and desperation- really scary stuff— that I come begging for Him.
2. Not until I get sick and tired of being sick and tired will I live the life I long for.
3. Fear is what gets in the way of what I really want.
These are three things I cannot afford to keep forgetting, and neither can you. But I’ll need the help of other women who want what I want.
Women who’ve declared themselves all His.
Women who are daring to trust Him even when they’re really not crazy about all that desperation and dying talk.
Women who are willing to call me out when I start hiding hogs again.
Women like you…
From my heart,
Diane
PS: Can you write us some stories of times you fell on your face in full on faith that only He could fix those broken places? We need to hear your songs of deliverance to help build up our own wobbly faith.
Hi Diane,
Thank you so much for writing this! I needed it! Sometimes I think I’m the only one who lives with fear instead of faith, (more than I want to admit) forgetting my Savior and His love.
Janelle, This whole fear thing is a habitual thorn in the side of women… men may have the same tendencies but they sure express it differently! Every woman I know struggles to trust God in the midst of nagging fear. And every one of us forget… or maybe just fail to really, honestly entrust ourselves (and those we love the most) to the care of the Father. I think it takes a lifetime of failing and repenting and going at it again… to really build a backlog of stories that strengthen our faith. And then we need to pass those stories on to our daughters and lots of adopted daughters… so that the next generation of women can benefit from all our failings!
This part of my story came to mind when I read the postscript, and I think it shows how I went from hiding and fear to faith and freedom:
I wouldn’t go so far as to say this story is about full-on faith, but God took the faith that was in my heart and he ran with it. About this time two years ago, I had been dating a guy for 6 months and I loved him and wanted to marry him. He loved God (or so I believed), I loved God, he was handsome, and he made me feel beautiful. We were wonderful friends and I loved to spend time with him. One night we were in a group of people praying for clarity in our lives, and I brought our relationship before God and I asked him to make it clear if I was supposed to be with this guy. In that instant, I actually was open to hearing what God wanted from the relationship with my boyfriend, and it was as if our relationship had been a closed door in my heart that at last I’d tentatively opened to God, and he, being the loving merciful father that he is, stuck his foot in the door before I could close it back up. I was left feeling what I thought was anxious, but others have pointed out to me since then that what I was probably feeling was convicted. I wasn’t sure I was supposed to be with my boyfriend anymore, and that scared me to death. I tried to ignore these unsettling feelings because they didn’t make sense to me. I was a mess; I cried all the time because these uncertain feelings stressed me out so badly. I told my boyfriend about them and he said he wasn’t worried, which was helpful and gave me time to process why I was feeling this way. God showed me during a Bible study of Ephesians 5 exactly why I was feeling this conviction. Basically, Ephesians 5:3-7 hit me like a ton of bricks. The parts that were particularly convicting were, “…there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality…” and, “…Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.” And from that, I realized why I was feeling so convicted: my boyfriend had this belief that I wholeheartedly disagreed with and found no basis in Scripture for, and that belief was that God could tell a couple it was okay to have oral sex before marriage. We had argued about it in the past, but I’d just brushed it off thinking something like, “he’s entitled to his own opinion,” and I had thought everything was still okay because we weren’t partaking in oral sex. But in Ephesians 5, there it says clearly, “no hint of sexual immorality,” and oral sex outside of marriage seemed like a very large hint of sexual immorality to me, and then, “let no one deceive you with empty words,” saying God could tell a couple that it’s okay before marriage seemed like empty words, and, “do not be partners with them,” did that mean we needed to break up? The following month, in a nutshell, involved us meeting with people I thought might shed some light on the issue for my boyfriend (mentors, pastors, etc.), but nothing changed his mind about this belief. And to me, it was more than just this surface-y wrong belief about sexual immorality, it was an issue of submitting to God. If he couldn’t submit to God on this, what else would he fight? Could I trust him to lead our family if we got married?
I broke up with him about a month after God first convicted me. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul quotes Jesus saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I was so weak, but God gave me the strength to break up with my boyfriend. The break up brought me to my knees, and I was a wreck for a solid 3 months. At first I fought what was going on. I still desperately tried to keep in contact with my ex-boyfriend, and then he finally cut things off for good, and that was the healthiest thing for me. I was left with God and no ex-boyfriend to distract me from the work God wanted to do in this time of terrible pain. I was broken and finally ready to let God in on a lot of past hurts. He used that summer to heal me from a past of emotional abuse, a broken relationship with my father, the pain of seeing my parents’ marriage being in shambles, and lots of other things I had not even realized were eating away at me. That September God sent me to Haiti, and he used the trip to heal my heart. I look back on that summer and I can see how gently and lovingly God led me down the path of healing. He loves us so much and he is the perfect Father.
This is so perfect and something I had been struggling with this week. I started realizing that my El Shadday see’s everything so why do I continually try to do it my way? Only my El Shadday knows when I am struggling and ever so faithfully he awakened me in the still of the night and told me I need to confess and give it ALL over to HIm. Only then did I find true peace and rest in him. What a promise we have if only we will take that step. AMEN!!!
Dearest Annie,
I just keep wondering what the Father has for you there with your bum leg and sabotaged plans. I know its good- great even. And not just because you’re “learning lessons”. This seems to be a whole shift in direction for you… and I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what that looks like… love to you! Di
Oh, Diane…so much of this needed for the little valley that follows sleep deprivation and a new little one. I seriously was so broken hearted about my walk (or lack there of) with the LORD after Ruth was born. She was, in spite of my unbelieving heart, a promise from God of what He did in my life (not what I did) and yet I still was like the people hoarding the pigs. Just in the last few days have I been able to come out of the fog that was over me because I wondered where He was during all of the sleepless nights and the panic attacks induced by sleep deprivation (oh please let me never live that again…ever). He was there all along just in watching way, one that I didn’t understand. He has given us the most beautiful, happy, lovely little girl who just lights up every morning (now she only gets up 1-2 times a night, not 10-12…).
Thank you for this, again. Thank you for asking Him for wisdom and sharing it. Oh how I need to do that more.
Love, Anna Norman
Dearest Anna,
There is no more joyous… and draining time of a woman’s life than the one you are living right now. Giving, giving, giving leaves women exhausted and often dried up inside. And then we feel so guilty for it, as if we somehow should have an endless supply of strength and endurance and happiness. We don’t!
Do you remember the story of Elijah? How weary he was? How he lost his hope and perspective? Wasn’t his run across the desert sort of a massive panic attack?
What did God do– He allowed Elijah’s weakness to force him to rest… then He fed him and refreshed him with clear, clean water.
May you drink deeply right now Anna. You might only get little sips at a time… but take all He offers. Listen to Him. Shut out those fears that your life will never be normal again. He has riches in this stretching time that you don’t want to miss.
And one more thing- write it down! We all need the treasures you’re collecting along the way.
Much love to you, Diane
“Faith overrides fear and fear deletes faith.” WOW! That is so true and struck me so hard. This post is incredible Di. I’ve never draw the parallel before of the back to back towns and the contrast. This week has been a strange one for our family. My husband is entrenched in a new job promotion that is great for long-term career development but doesn’t really fit his giftings. It’s demanding of his time and mental energy and not very much fun. Our 15-year-old car broke down right about the same time we had a negative shift in our finances. I’m considering heading back to work part-time, something that was never on the radar screen or in the desire of my heart. Our 5th grade son was threatened at the pool. Our dear friends are in major family crisis and we have no idea what to do or how to help. Our kids sports schedule has us shuffling from ball field to pool to ball field and back again every night this week, limiting time together as a family and exhausting all of us. Yet in the midst of this, we have peace. Peace that passes all understanding. Because we know that our God leads, as Phil said so beautifully on Sunday, “through open and closed doors.” Our God IS Faithful and every that He is, He will be to us. Thank you for this reminder.
And in the midst of all that you’re training for a marathon! Wow, Jodi, its time all your sisters really brought you to the Father. May He just load you up with grace and uncanny peace and clear wisdom as to how to use your precious time. May He be your entire hope, dear friend. Love you, Di
To “fall on my face in full on faith” and rely on my Heavenly Father to fix those broken places is a statement I resonate with, all too well. These past 2 years have been the most painful and heart wrenching years of my life and yet God has been present in the most intimate of ways. To witness what I once thought was stable, secure and for a lifetime, crumbled before me, and although my heart still grieves such a loss I am reminded daily of His mercies being new every morning for me. Gods faithfulness as the most trustworthy relationship I will ever have keeps me close to His side and I know without any doubt He will and does prove to be faithful.
I have been in a desperate place and that is when I have embraced the one who created me and knows me so well. I have discovered his infinite love and devotion in my life all over again and somehow those fears don’t seem as gigantic as they once did. Some of my fears are no longer with me because they are better left in the hands of the one who moves mountains and calms the seas. Tragic circumstances changed the course of my life but Gods course for my life is safe, secure and certainly faith building.
Dear Jeanette,
I love the wisdom of your words… “somehow those fears don’t seem as gigantic as they once did…”
I wish we could learn that without the tragic circumstances… but most of the time it takes complete failure of our own ways of coping to actually bring us to that place of full on rest… rest in Him. God never intended any of us for all this hurt… yet He lends His strength when we need him as you so clearly have… Its so good to hear that you are finding all His strength to be enough in the worst of times. May you continue to find the wisdom you need to do what He never wanted you to have to do… God bless, Diane
Late night reading. Wow!!! You know how people call that crying “ugly face crying”. I think that kind of crying is so beautiful to God. Beautiful because it’s like “Elizabeth it’s about time.” We all have hard, and for some stronger willed types, like me, the harder is harder as it takes long to grab hold of His tassel. I am not letting go, so even in the hard there is great peace in knowing He is here, right now. You have woven scripture so beautifully here. Lovies to you, Elizabeth
Dear Elizabeth,
“…even in the hard there is great peace in knowing He is here, right now…” wise words from a wise learner. And I know all about strong-will! Geez, sometimes I shock even myself at my stubborn unwillingness to yield! But He never gives up on us, and actually uses those “ugly face tears” to sort of soften the stubbornness and plant His seeds of wisdom… much love to you, Diane
Diane,
Thank you for this timely post. I am currently at the beginning of a life season where I believe “fall on your face” faith is the only thing that will sustain me, as my mother was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. We visit the oncologist tomorrow. The back story as it relates to my family quickly becomes complex and challenging. More than a few nights already I’ve found myself lying in bed enrobbed in anxiety and fear, my heart pounding in my ears over all the “what-if’s” and “alreadys.” As an ICU nurse, I’ve cared for countless patients and families in these situations but this is my sweet momma and somehow it makes it so different in a familiar, yet much more personal way. Last evening, as I was driving home from church, having heard the message on grace and peace, I remembered someone once saying that until a person grasps grace, they will not know peace. The Lord showed me once again that He wants us to cast continually our cares, burdens, and anxieties on Him BECAUSE HE CARES FOR US. He cares for us. He knows us. He loves us. In the quiet of my car, I was able to lay down the burdens of the unknown, family history/patterns, and relationships. It was the first peace I’d known in a couple of days. I am immensely grateful that He is bigger than the fear that grips me and squeezes me to the core. If I am to function in this, I am learning that EVERY thought, thought by thought, needs to be taken captive to Him alone. Years of time, distance, and misunderstanding have not been kind in some of my family’s relationships. I believe that the Lord could bring much needed reconciliation and healing to them. The challenge comes in allowing the thoughts, anxieties, and burdens cast at His feet to stay there rather than picking them up again. As J the B said, “I might decrease that He might increase.” There is no shortage of opportunity to fall on my face before Him. I am praying this is where I stay for the duration, however long that is.
Dear Andrea, Please know that I will be praying for you. May God give you great wisdom and His insight to tackle the tasks ahead. And may He be the one to bring the peace you crave and need.