Ageless Fear

Fear is an ageless emotion., given by God to draw us to Him not away from Him.  But ever since the fall we hide fears tucked sometimes so deep within our hearts that we can't put a tag on what it is we really fear.

Just the other day God shed some light on a fear that is keeping me from enjoying this new adventure God has designed for us.  Being a missionary for many years, living in a couple third world countries, in remote location you would think I had done enough and conquered enough fears that I would not be bothered much with it at my age.  Fear comes wrapped in many packages and I am learning age does make the package look different.  When I was in my early 40's I don't remember fearing the reality of immortality....about 20 years later fear came wrapped in the "age reality" package.  Heaven was sounding closer as my body groaned whenever I tried to do what I could do without effort at 40.  Fear grew as friends my age begin to lose their mates but they had a home, were financially set up and the reality of us not having those things,  no home, no money came slowing stealing my peace and joy.  For about a year I struggled with this fear and every good thing God sent my way came out joyless as I battled this insecurity.  Like all fear it left as I continue to look fear in the face, call in out for what it was...unbelief that God would take care of His children, no matter what age..

Life is never dull with the Lord and one does not have to go live in a foreign country to do battle with  fear and insecurity.   We will be moving from the Bible belt of  Kentucky to Southern California which might quality as a foreign country to a southern gal.  (only joking) Excitement fills my heart until as I think about living close to our son and grandchildren but then the catch comes.  You see our son is not walking with the Lord and he is struggling in every area, his marriage, his finances..my fear is our parent heart will get in the way of God's heart for our son.   


This fear comes often to steal my joy even though it is clear to me God is the one who opened the door for us to minister close to our son and grand children.  As I write this I realize just naming my fears make them smaller. Godly perspective settles in and I know it is the battles calling me to suit up in the armor of God daily until He calls us out of the reality of this world into His presence.  There we  will no longer need a suit of armor for we will be like Him...the reality of our faith will be face to face with the King of Kings.  Amen, Amen.

This Could Be the Cloud He's Coming Back On

 

There is nothing I love better then watching clouds.  They fill me with a sense of anticipation and always make me start singing the song, This Could Be The Cloud He's Coming Back On.  Even though I expect Him every day I don't get discouraged when He gives us one more day to serve Him here on earth.  

Recently I got new lenses (artificial lenses) in my eyes and now when I turn my head a certain way there is sort of a twinkle that some say they can see when the light is just right.   It kind of makes me feel special when someone mentions it. 

Lately I have been dwelling on a few words used to describe the swiftness of our accent to heaven.  In the twinkling of an eye.   My mind wondered, why not in the blink of an eye, or in the closing of our eye, better yet why not a double blink? Sometime clarity comes as you dwell on something...God gives insight.      

This (change will be in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1Co_15:52), in the very instant, or not long after the raising up of those that sleep in Jesus. And those who are raised, and thus changed, shall meet together in the clouds, and there meet with their Lord, to congratulate him on his coming, to receive the crown of glory he will then bestow upon them, and to be assessors with him in judgment, approving and applauding the sentence he will then pass upon the prince of the power of the air, and all the wicked, who shall be doomed to destruction with the devil and his angels. ( Now this was exciting to see both phrases in the same commentary.)

  

  The insight the Lord impressed upon my soul is that if He were to give us more time then," the twinkling of an eye"  our flesh would rise up against the timing.  I could just hear my self...wait Lord there is just one more thing I need to do, it will only take three blinks of the eyes.  God so knows and love us down to the very twinkle in our eyes.  We are the twinkle in His eye, caught there for eternity and when He comes on those clouds His eye will twinkle and up we go. 

The doctor took out the lenses God place in my eyes recently because of cataracts.  The ones  He formed while I was developing inside my mother womb but from the very moment they were formed they were frail, bound to fail if I lived long enough.  It's not God's fault, He really does not make junk but Adam and Eve being casted out of the Garden brought frailness into being.  No longer was God working with perfection, sin had taken it's toll.  Until He send His Son, one not tainted by sin or frailness, one with a permanent twinkle in His eyes. 

From the beginning a twinkle was talked about:  Gen. 1:31
The time when this work was concluded: The evening and the morning were the sixth day; so that in six days God made the world. We are not to think but that God could have made the world in an instant. He said that, Let there be light, and there was light, could have said, “Let there be a world,” and there would have been a world, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, as at the resurrection, 1Co_15:52

Personally I am glad He saved the twinkling of an eye for the taking us home.  Clouds make me wonder is His eyes twinkling now...oh I hope soon they will..come quickly Lord Jesus.