TOO WEARY NOT TO RECONCILE

Deuteronomy 34:1-Joshua 2:24; Luke 13:22-14:6; Psalm 79:1-13; Proverbs 12:26

“We are all afraid of you. Everyone in the land is living in terror. For we have heard how the Lord made a dry path for you through the Red Sea when you left Egypt. And we know what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River, whose people you completely destroyed.”

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. And now, look, your house is abandoned. And you will never see me again until you say, ‘Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

“Help us, O God of our salvation! Help us for the glory of your name. 
Save us and forgive our sins for the honor of your name.”

“The godly give good advice to their friends; the wicked lead them astray.”

There is probably very little that alienates God’s people from each other and God more than fear. Fear breeds suspicion; emphasizes self-doubt and vulnerability; and generates hopelessness and anger. While all this is bad enough, the biggest problem is fear can blind us to the very things and people who can get us past it. In fear and anxiety, we often withdraw. We refuse to reach out to others. We reduce church attendance. We cut ourselves off from the instruments of grace. In sum, we push away. We don’t want help; we want a magic cure.  We come to resent God more and more when the magic never happens, missing completely that we are living a self-fulfilling curse. So Jesus calls again, “Fear not!”

Christ longs to take us under His wings! But I have a problem: I am reluctant to open up to anyone more complete than I feel. I fear being exposed. I fear ridicule for my own hypocrisy more. Try as I might, I hesitate to reveal my heart. Even when it is revealed – often, against my will, but inevitably nonetheless -  I’ve been known to try to fight the Spirit off, much like Jacob at the River Jabbok. As if He doesn’t already know how I think and feel. As if He doesn’t already know every single inch of my sin. That’s why sometimes equate reconciliation with simple exhaustion. My greatest reconciliations with God have come after months of fighting Him. I make things hard on us both. God can handle it, but there is an easier way.

As long as I can remember actually knowing there was a group of “sick people,” I have had a tough time being in places like nursing homes or hospitals. I cannot explain why; it is a primal, instinctive anxiety without logic or, to my recall, any cause at all. I would love to say I was just cautious about saying or doing the wrong thing, but it’s tons deeper than that. I’d rather be pretty much anywhere else. One thing good did come of it, though. When I finally confessed to myself and Jesus that my anxiety was really fear, I learned the depth of God’s sense of humor. He put me in a place where I had to regularly visit nursing homes to make a living. I became a nursing home attorney. Even years later, after moving into another area of practice, I’m still not sure how I ended up in nursing home litigation. It is possible I was just the last person out of the room when the Firm asked for volunteers. More likely, it was the Spirit doing what it often does – teach me never to say never.

I will not lie and say I ever got perfectly comfortable. I did not. But I did come to recognize the potential for ministry both in my work and my simple presence. Almost against my natural inclination, I found I could help the patients and staff reconnect with hope.  That made all the difference! When I gave God my weakness and timidity, he remade it into compassion and opportunity for His Kingdom.

All this raises one simple question: what is there to really be afraid of? If God can take our worst and turn it to good, if He can take our good and make it His best, why do we resist? It is always safe to trust God. It may – frequently, is – unsettling, but that’s only because we are usually stuck in a rut of self-doubt to begin, and we need a push to get started. I’m mostly exhausted from exhausting myself trying to keep God at arm’s length. I know He loves me. I just need to allow Him to do more of it I need to be reconciled more and more to Him, until His thoughts are my thoughts, so I won’t even think of fighting. Boy, have I got some reconciling to do!