(originally posted at pastoranthonyblog.wordpress.com on February 26, 2016)
You know that moment in a movie
When the anticipation of fright seizes your heart?
When you are afraid before the culmination of the scare?
I live in that state of anxiety almost daily.
Why you may ask?
The reasons are as complex as a single life itself.
I fear because I exist.
I exist in a world that is wrecked with darkness—with brokenness.
In the midst of the brokenness, we wander around in emptiness.
We wander, searching for wholeness.
Searching for significance.
Searching for an answer to the question: Do I matter?
Maybe I am alone in this,
But my search has taken me to places
I would have hoped to never go.
I have looked among the finite for an answer to an infinite question.
I have looked among the ugly for validation through comparison.
You see, if my ugliness looks beautiful next to something horrific—
Maybe I am okay. Maybe.
So we scramble around in the muck
Complacently concluding that maybe this isn’t so bad.
Maybe this is all there is.
Maybe there is no greater significance.
Maybe the attempt to hope is as elusory as eternity.
Maybe hope for meaning is a lie.
So,
I fear insignificance.
I fear failure.
I fear the future.
I fear fear.
Yet, my entire being cries out
Fear is a lie!
Fear is a mirage
For fear is the anticipation of what could be,
Not the reality of what is.
What if hope is the anticipation of what is truly to come
But is not yet?
What if hope defines what really is in reality?
What if fear determines what really will be but was not?
What if fear is self-fulfilling?
What if what we fear could never be
If we didn’t fear in the first place?
So hope—why?
What is it about being human
That innately means we seek hope?
Why do we all hope for a connection with transcendence?
Possibly because we all wonder about significance.
An infinitely crucial question such as:
Whether a human life is significant or not?
Who can answer?
None but the Author of life itself.
Only that which transcends the finite can answer such an infinite question.
And, the question has been answered.
The Infinite became finite.
The eternal entered into the temporal.
The essence of life subjected itself to death.
Hope was born and walked among us. The Eternal One has answered the infinite question
By surrendering His eternal life to Death.
But Death could not corrupt the Incorruptible
Hope could not be surrendered to fear.
Thus we need not fear.
The God of all creation
The God of the universe
The One who imagined the mysteries of galaxies and atoms,
The One who is infinite has declared to all that is finite
The Creator has proclaimed to humanity
While the entire Cosmos looked on:
You, my beloved, are of unsurpassable worth.
Fear not, I have overcome.
I have redeemed, forgiven, healed, restored, reconciled, saved—
I have taken care of your descent into brokenness.
You were not made to find your eternal worth in temporal things.
You were not made to toil and search so hard.
Rest in hope.
Rest in grace.
Rest in love.
Fear not, for I AM with you. (originally posted at pastoranthonyblog.wordpress.com on February 26, 2016)
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