Fear vs. Fear

Hello everyone!
This blog post was written by my wonderfully fantastic friend Megan. (You can follow her poetry blog here: http://hungryfishpoetry.blogspot.com/) It is an excellent piece of writing, concerning fear, doubt, worry, and the like, that she wrote specifically for my blog. So, enjoy!

"I've been thinking about fear a lot recently. Everybody has something that triggers this bitter feeling. Maybe it's a fear of rejection, a fear of pain, or anything else. 1 John 4:18 says "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." Yet, knowing this, I am conflicted by the use of the word 'fear', because through the Old Testament AND the New Testament people are said to be God-fearing, or filled with a fear of God. I am confused and conflicted. 2 Timothy 1 says we weren't made with a spirit of timidity or fear, but again, the fear of God issue... I think the problem lies in the word itself. I find this to be a failing of the English language! Rather than one meaning to a word, we stave every word to a host of names. I think the fear issue I have should be rested like this: fear of God: respect, reverence, and love of God. An unwillingness to disappoint Him. I think God wants us to be bold and courageous. Now, courageous people don't have an absence of fear; they have a determination to overcome it. I'm sure firefighters have a healthy respect and fear of fire, but they master it. Surgeons, I feel confident saying, fear messing up a procedure. Again though, they overcome it. I think that's where God wants us to be. We are permitted to be unsure of our abilities, but we should be bold in our relationship with Him. After all, Philippians 4:13 says "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." I think the Biblical admonishments against fear can be further clarified like this: "Don't worry. You may not be able to do it in your own strength, and it's fine to recognize that. In God's strength, however, anything can get done. Trust Him."
So, perfect love (le God) drives out doubts, worries, and inability. God wants us to trust Him and to live boldly, day by day. Let God worry about the big stuff, the small stuff, the scary stuff, and all the stuff. We should just concern ourselves with obeying Him."

Wanderer

          I've been in such a struggle lately. I've come to a crossroads and I'm stuck there, with no map, no direction, and no destination. 

          For, while it is a horrible thing to be lost, it is even more horrible to be on a journey and not have a destination. And I would know. I have been in both situations. When you are lost, you at least know where you are supposed to be going. If you can be found, or find your way back to the path, you are set to rights again. There is at least the hope of finding your way. Not so when you have no destination. You don't know where you're supposed to be going and so you just... wander. You endlessly wander with no purpose until your life whittles away, pointless. 

         Depressing? Yes. Entirely. But true nonetheless. People are meant to have destinations. We are meant to have goals, aspirations, dreams... it's how we're made. We're built to always be heading towards something. So what happens when there is nothing that you're heading towards? Do you go mad? I mean, there is a difference between heading towards something through the mist, even if you don't what it is, and just meandering around in circles because you don't know where you're supposed to be going. It is a conundrum. 

         When you have no direction, no heading, there is not a map in the world that can help you. GPS does no good. And the advice of a million people can offer no relief because you don't know what you want. It makes you think, doesn't it? What are your priorities? What is it, exactly, that you are heading towards? How can you chase something that just isn't there?

         What happens when you just wander? Wandering gets you nowhere. 

          It's a question that has been on my mind a lot lately. Because I am at a place where I need to make a decision, but I don't even know the options in front of me. And if you don't even know the choices, how can you be sure to pick the right one?

          I seem to have only questions, and no answers. 

          And at the end of the day, I can write as many blog posts as I want, use as many analogies as my brain can think of, and describe this hopeless situation a thousand times over. Analyzing things and mulling over problems can offer new insight and provide an explanation that you overlooked before. But, as with so many things in life, there may be no set right answer. 

          Have you ever read a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book? If you have, and you're anything like me, you will have been through one book at least fifty times, trying to get every possible scenario. Hours wasted, ripping through just one adventure, trying to make all the right choices so that you get the best ending. The thing about those books, though, is that you can go back and make the right choices. If you have to make a decision, and you made the wrong decision before, you can make the right decision by process of elimination. Life isn't like that. You make the decisions that you make, and if they are the wrong decisions, there are no do overs. You don't get to flip back to the beginning of the book and try again. 

         This brings us to the fear factor. Because, when faced with big decisions, (even something as ambiguous as a goal for your life,) we fear making the wrong choice because it can negatively impact our lives. We've all made a bad decision, and it has scarred us. We become reluctant and second guess ourselves and can't even pick a destination because we are uncertain. We are afraid. 

          And so, we wander. Because wandering around in a comfortable little rut is better to us than the unknown. Is it indecisiveness that leads us to this place? Or fear? Or some deadly combination of both? And does that even matter? Because when you are in that place, when you become the wanderer, there is only one thing that matters: escape. You have to escape the endless wandering, and find a destination. Maybe someone rescues you from that place or maybe you just select a place, somewhere in the distance, and head towards it as a lifeline. But you have to get out of there, because when you wander, you go nowhere. 

          It is not an easy thing to do, to leave the nomadic style of thinking. And a little wandering can be okay. That's called exploring, and sometimes it's a necessary thing to do. But wandering forever? That leads to a life spent in the realm of the comfortable and unchanging. If you don't invest in risks, then you can't expect change, either positive or negative.