The Deception of Fear

Alright this is going to sound a little weird but... I had this dream a couple of weeks ago. In the dream I was mowing the front lawn at my parents house and as I'm mowing the lawn I see this huge snakeskin and suddenly this huge snake is chasing me up the driveway. At that point I jarred myself awake because I was so afraid. I'm not really interested in getting caught by a snake, even if it's just in Dreamland. I never remember my dreams but this one is sticking with me. Maybe its dumb to try to interpret your dreams but I can't help but think that Satan really is trying to discourage me or chase me away from what I'm doing or something like that, or maybe the snake was just a metaphor for all my fears. God's really been showing me alot lately about how afraid I am about everything really.

It's kinda silly but lately I've been seeing how fear plays out in my life in a million little ways. I'll be running and I'll pass a man on the street and suddenly get scared that he's going to attack me so I'll have to look behind me real quick when I pass him to make sure he's not gonna try a sneak attack from the back (as if simply looking at him is really going to stop him). Or I'll be about to go to a meeting and just start getting scared everything is going to be unbearably hard. Sometimes I even just refuse to answer my cellphone for days at a time because I'm scared that everyone who calls will want to talk for two hours. Mostly I'm just overwhelmed and afraid that I'm not capable of making the right decisions and doing what it is that God wants me to do.

I think I've been focusing so long on my total depravity (which yes, apart from Christ I am totally depraved) that I've forgotten about the riches of what I have now that I'm in Christ. Check out this passage:
May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
(2Pe 1:2-11)

I think that fear overtakes me when I get so caught up in my life that I become nearsighted and I forget that I've been cleansed from my former sins. I start wallowing in them and I don't believe I can do anything right when I'm looking at all my failures. Through Christ I am a partaker in the divine nature. I am more than a conqueror. I have all that I need to do what I was born to do because I have Christ. The end of all this life, the end of this world, and the future of all mankind is Christ, and I have Him as my own. Do I believe that? Do I live like it?

I heard a great story last Sunday at one of the churches I went to. One day Martin Luther was incredibly discouraged, so his wife dressed herself in all black. When he saw her working around the house in those clothes he asked, "Where are you going?", and she said, "nowhere". So he replied, "Then why are you dressed like that?" and she said, "Because God is dead!". Then he got really mad that she said that so she said, "well, if God is alive then live like it." I have a form of godliness but too often I deny its power. God is alive and well and working. If God is for us, who can be against us?

"...our problem as human beings is deeper than the individual sins we commit each day, creating the specific problems that complicate our lives. Our deepest problem is that we seek to find our identity outside the story of redemption. If the entire goal and direction of our lives are wrong, we need much more than practical advice on how to do the right thing in a particular situation. We need a message big enough to overcome our natural human instinct to live for our own glory, pursue our own happiness, and forget that our lives are much, much bigger than this little moment of life. Every day in some way, we buy the lies of autonomy and self-sufficiency, worshiping the creation rather than the Creator." - Paul Tripp (Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands)