Military schools are known for stripping away any fluff and producing competent technicians in the shortest possible time frame. We would be in class for several hours a day and studying many hours on our own in our 'free time'. For several years in spite of doing well in school I was again coming face to face with fear in my life. I had so much self doubt that when my high school counselor called me to inform me I had been elected into the National Honor Society I had hung up thinking it was a cruel joke! Fear is a powerful spiritual and emotional force that can paralyze and cause so much internal pain. Now as I began this new challenging school I knew I needed some peace on the inside.
I can't recall the exact details but I was invited early on by the Catholic chaplain on base to attend a retreat along with a couple of dozen other young Air-force students. I was hesitant to participate but since school was only just beginning and I had the time, I took the risk and went along. The retreat was very peaceful and involved times of reflection, prayer and enjoying the beauty of nature. I remember consciously experiencing a lot of peace but wasn't sure if it would last...it didn't. During the retreat I was given a New Testament. Several times after the retreat when anxiety gripped my heart and the emotion of fear caused me pain in my stomach, I would begin to read the gospel of Matthew which is the first book in the New Testament.
Each time I would read I would be fascinated by how one particular portion of Jesus words would speak directly to my own inner fears and turmoil. I will quote a portion of that text hear for you, " Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? (Please read the entire portion at Matthew chapter 6:25-33)
I would read and reread this portion of scripture over and over and get temporary relief.... I knew it to be true but I just couldn't shake that sense of fear that had taken up residence in my 'gut'. The pain just wouldn't leave. As school began I studied for no less than 4 hours each day. I was getting good grades and wound up ranked 2nd in my class out of about 35 classmates. But I had ongoing dreams of failure and was literally shocked every time I found out I had done well in our exams. Fear had taken up residence somewhere inside my soul and I could not seem to shake it. How could I get free?
My first conscious awareness of experiencing this fear was at the age of 10. I had been struggling in our math class and had been bringing home poor grades. One day I overheard my parents arguing in their bedroom about 'what to do with me'. My mother was giving me the benefit of the doubt but my father was convinced I couldn't handle the work and had something 'wrong with me'. There were loud voices and strong disagreement.... and at that moment something gripped my soul that lasted for over a decade....fear had found a doorway into my heart.
Fear is spiritual and it has the power to paralyse and harm even when it has no basis in fact. I was a good student but I was a vulnerable child and fear moved in and built a home. It wasn't until many years later that I found out that fear could be kicked out of the house of my soul. Even reading the powerful words of Jesus did not evict that overriding pain of the emotion of fear in my life. I needed something more than familiarity with truth to transform my life.
It's not enough to know about Jesus. It's not enough to be familiar with his beautiful words of truth. At age 18 I had tried to read scripture as a sort of 'worry cure' but its effects were so short lived that over time I had ceased reading.... and praying. But God's word is powerful and his person is often working in ways beyond our understanding and comprehension. That inner peace that was fleeting on a weekend retreat was something I longed for and years later it came in a mighty way when I prayed a prayer of surrender to the God of the Bible. It was on a Saturday night on a gym floor in Anchorage, Alaska that instead of finding temporary peace, I encountered the Prince of Peace himself. I took the risk of faith and asked Jesus to save me... to forgive me... to heal my broken heart. Something very real took place on that day and its still taking place today in 2012 in Mobile, Alabama.
I'm still tempted to worry and experience fear at times but there is a presence of God in my life that is undeniable and wonderful. Freedom from fear isn't found in a drug... in a bottle....or in a philosophy of man. Peace is found in the powerful love of God that believes in us and heals us one moment at a time. "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." (1 John 4:18)
Jim
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