Fear

Ron Block is a musician with Alison Krauss and Union Station. He wrote the following insightful words on fear:

"When the Hebrews finally entered the Promised Land (after years of unbelief!) they had to deal with the inhabitants, not en masse, but one group after another. Some of the Canaanites made deals with the Israelites; others were just wiped out.

"It’s important to realize that there is no such thing as generalized fear. When we get right down to it, fear is very specific. For instance, a relative is afraid to fly, and a little less afraid to drive. To me that translates into a fear of death (a healthy fear if we don’t know Christ). My musical stepping-out involves ditching fear--fear of not being 'good enough' in certain areas (a comparison mind-game). These fears in me were implanted early on as I didn’t feel 'good enough'; when I began playing music the fear just translated right on into my musical life. God dealt with my self-worth 'not good enough' in the mid-nineties; He has just recently (in the past two years) finally dealt with my 'not good enough' fear in certain musical areas.

"So--no inhabitants of the Promised Land en masse; no fears, or unbelief, or sinful attitudes in us are general. They are all specific, and must be specifically dealt with. The way through, as with the Hebrews, is faith--the labor to enter His Rest. That’s the real deal. We take up the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and we take up our Shield of faith (after putting on the full armor of God). Then we march out in faith and in defiance of anything we see inside ourselves; instead, we claim this inner landscape of 'I' for Christ because it has already been bought and paid for--and Christ Himself is the enforcer of the title deed.

"That’s what God wants--Calebs and Joshuas. As my old pastor used to say, 'The uncommon man.' One who will take God at His Word and step out as an act of the will in action, sustained by the confidence that when God says a thing, He cannot lie. God wants us to move from the little children stage where we’re centered on forgiveness and Father (really still centered on ourselves to a large degree), into the young man stage where we become strong in Christ and overcome the Wicked One. And then we can move into the father stage of Christian experience, where we are begetting sons and daughters because we 'know Him who is from the beginning'; in other words we see God working in all things and in/ upon all people; we ask of God, and He gives us what we ask for because we are faith-ful and we ask in order to bless others.

"It all starts with the Cross, of course. Grace. Forgiveness. Father. And then Father says, 'OK, time to start growing.' Growth hurts sometimes. In 1991 I prayed, 'Work Your will in my life, no matter what the cost' from Tozer. The cost seemed high at times--but from where I sit it was totally worth it, and I continue to pray that prayer and add others to it as well --'When I stand before You I want to hear "Well done." Do whatever You have to do in my life to achieve that end.' Because that’s the bottom line--death, and then standing before Christ. We all know we won’t be standing there in our works of human effort, bragging about all we did FOR Christ; those who do that will prove by their words that they didn’t know Him. 'Depart from Me, I never knew you.' We'll be standing there, having trusted in His righteous sacrifice to save us; let it be when we stand there before Him that we also trusted in His indwelling Holy Spirit to be the power within us to fully take the Promised Land of our humanity for His glory and His Kingdom. That’s the labor of faith--not a works trip, but a continual, committed reliance on God and His Word, no matter what our feelings say, no matter what the world or Devil throw at us. And we don’t make deals with the inhabitants within us--unbelief, fear, sinful attitudes. That was Saul’s sin in not wiping out the Amalekites and their king. That kind of compromise only leads to more trouble later on."