Embers.

I first saw Him when I was just a boy. He was always near me even though I had no name to call Him by. In the garden we would play, at the table we would eat together & joy we would share. Mine was His & His was mine. There was no fear in me because I knew there was no fear in Him.

Soon there came an age when I was convinced of the forbidden fruit. I learned of fear, shame & I left to be on my own. I, myself, became enough to live on. Little by little, my ears grew deaf to His call. My pleasures hardened my heart so much as to think I did not need a friend, & so the darkness dimmed the light within me. He wept in the garden where we once enjoyed one another, for I would not come to be with Him, & I also wept, for I would not let Him be with me.

For years I tried to forget I knew Him. His presence was too pure to exist in the choices I made, so I thought. A weariness & a question overcame me.

"How could such a light still love me?

All too easy I would forget that glowing ember still fighting for breath within me, wholeheartedly yearning to ignite once again. Yet, I kept His light from my path & covered it for no one to see.

Many days swept together & the nights drew on until I opened my eyes to behold a valley of darkness. There was no retreat in this place, no way out, & a beast sat before me with his eyes feasting on my very flesh. The beast was here to take to last of my light, to forever darken the ember that remained in my heart. It was me who would be the victim & he would scream as vanquisher.

"It is a life I want, any life," the beast moaned, "Your life."

A fear grew within me & became a burden too great to bear. I released to my knees in despair & my eyes welled with tears as I knew I was no match for the beast. A distant hope remained & the ember deep within me flickered & I remember, so long ago, when I was with my friend. Like a flood in my mind the memories returned of playing in the fields with Him, learning His name & walking quietly alongside the waters in His company. I knew nothing of this dark valley in the days that I walked with my friend, but I was far from those meadows now as my knees scratched the parched earth & my eyes were shut tightly wishing I could be with Him just one more time.

"Forgive me," graced my lips.

When the light first struck my closed eyes, it felt as though I was being beckoned awake by the sun after a sleeping through the winter. My eyes peeled open to see the beast retreating.  Before me, now, was my friend from so long ago, bloodied & bruised. My friend has given His life for me. A life was owed & a life was taken. I could hardly utter a sound as my feet shuffled atop the scorched dirt & gravel to be with Him.

I spoke through my tears, "I wasn't sure you would come, I was so afraid."

My friend smiled & whispered, "I am always with you, to the very end of the age."

Away from Fear

An inescapable reality of the world has been weighty on my mind lately, the presence of fear. The topic of fear runs to a depth that I can hardly pretend to understand nor write in intricate detail about. However, it must be made clear that there are different kinds of fear; there is a beautiful, divine kind & a broken, fallen alternative. The greater of the two is a fear when standing in awe & reverence before an eternal & loving Father, one that is the beginnings of wisdom, as King Solomon first told us so many years ago. The world offers us an alternative which, simply stated, is a kind that leaves us crippled & bound as slaves. This past week I spoke with a patient about Jesus & what is meant to fear the Lord. As we spoke, he heard for the first time in his life that Jesus was his friend (John 15), that we were saved even when we were dead within our sin (Ephesians 2) & that there is no fear in love but instead perfect love drives out all fear (1 John 4). We sat & talked for together in great length, & he wept, just as I did when I felt the freedom in Christ that someone cared enough to share with me.

I have realized something over the past few years, that it is not the removal of fear (or evil) surrounding a man that will cure him. Instead, it is the careful but painful excision of fear from within a man that will set him free. This ultimate freedom from fear is only accessible through Jesus, for he is the only one who has overcome & the only one who has bore it all. This fear that started in the Garden is a cancer that embeds in the mind, lingers in the heart, binds our hands &, ultimately, infects our very souls. As we know Christ as our savior & friend, as our identity in Him grows, freedom is a certain fruit awaiting us. No one I have ever known has desired slavery & a life in Christ has left us no option to return to that bondage.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, & do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." -Galatians 5:1

Not by our own efforts let us blindly journey to the depths & darkness of ourselves to find freedom but let us go with God. For God is the true light that gives light every man. When we journey into freedom with Him we have a light that will expose any darkness & in Him we have the strength to overcome it.

We are free in Jesus & there is no room for fear in such a freedom.