What do you fear most?

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From Pastor Chris, in preparation for worship this Sunday:

What is it that you fear the most?

When I was a child, before I went to bed every night, my parents would pull the white shade that covered my window down to bring darkness into my room for sleep. But on heavily moonlight nights the shadows of the branches blowing in the nighttime breeze would be illuminated against that white shade over my window, giving me the sense that the trees were alive and watching me!

My deep fear, as I pulled the covers over my head to protect myself, was that those tree branches in the woods behind my home were going to burst through my window with their spindly, twig hands and pluck me out of my bed and take me away to some dark and dreadful forest and hold me captive (thanks Disney!).

In our childhood, our fears mostly had to do with spooky things “that went bump in the night.”

But as we age, our fear begins to transition more to that which threatens our internal lives. It’s not so much the things themselves, but what the things might cause. And so, we fear losing someone we love (because of the loneliness that might ensue). We fear that our sin may be revealed (because we think we might be abandoned or embarrassed). We fear not knowing the answer to an important question (because it might make us look dumb). We fear being overweight, out of shape, or unpresentable (because not meeting the nebulous standards set by our society could make us outcasts). We fear that someone important, popular, and powerful might not like us (because we might never connect with the people that matter). And this list goes on.

Biblical counselor Ed Welch says, “Who or what you fear is that which controls you.” What he means is that our fear becomes the center piece of our lives and we begin to make decisions based on what that fear does to us.

But what if the thing we feared the most wasn’t a person or an inner revelation, but God himself? What if we began to make all of our decision and develop our deepest sense of self around the deep conviction that God is at the center of everything?

As we prepare to come to worship this morning, ponder this question and ask yourself whether you are fearing someone or something more than you are fearing God Himself?

“This only can my fears control, And bid my sorrows fly;
What harm can ever reach my soul, Beneath my Father’s eye.” -Anne Steele

The Restlessness of Pride – quotes for reflection

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Quotes & Reflections:

“Hubris is the first and most popular form of idolatry. But all forms of idolatry involve us deeply in folly…If we try to fill our hearts with anything besides the God of the universe, we find that we are overfed but undernourished, and we find that day by day, week by week, year after year, we are thinning down to a mere outline of a human being.” — Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin

“And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction. And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it more than itself.” — St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God 

“From a Christian view of the world, here is one of the deepest motives of perfectionism: the desire to be ruler of our own world and to make sure we are in control. Freud was so close to the truth when he said that the heart of all human problems was the Oedipus complex, a man’s desire to get rid of his father, the authority in his life. Freud, of course, mean our biological, human father. The Bible defines the root problem as rebellion and hardness of heart toward our heavenly father (Rom 1:21-25).” — Richard Winter, Perfecting Ourselves to Death

“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Devotional Preparation:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” — Matthew 11:28-30 (ESV)

The Conversion of C.S. Lewis

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(Written by Pastor Chris)

One of the great heroes of Christian faith in the last century was C.S. Lewis, whose words still feed the souls of many today. Some may not know that while Lewis was born into a family of faith, by the age of fifteen he had rejected it all and become a convinced atheist.  That atheism even led him, temporarily, into the pursuit of the occult and other mystery religions while studying at University.  Later, having now graduated to a professorship at Oxford, he was engaged directly by Christian members of the faculty like JRR Tolkien and author’s like G.K. Chesterton. The more he allowed himself to enter into meaningful conversations on this most important topic, the more he could feel the approach of God. Finally, God’s approach became so imminent that Lewis had no recourse but to bow.  He tells the story of his conversion this way:

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen (Oxford), night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”  C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life

Lewis’ “restlessness” prior to this experience was only attributable to the simple fact that he was not yet converted. Now, this may not be the reason for the restlessness that most of us feel, but we must pay homage to the fact that it could be the reason for some. Unless we are truly converted, we can never be truly at rest!