Quote

"Resolved: That all men should live to the glory of God. Resolved, secondly: That whether or not anyone else does, I will." -Jonathan Edwards

Fear and God

I don't need God's presence in my life to accomodate my fear (in other words to keep the fear from happening). I need it to cast it out and walk in truth over the circumstances.

There is a major, major difference.

Fear, love, and dreams

So I live in the climate of Bethel Church and there is often a focus on the dreams that God has placed in a person. While it is extremely healthy to have dreams, it can be very dangerous how people can run with their dreams in living in a narcissitic reality. I get concerned at times that people will spend their lives wondering why God isn't empowering their dreams. If those dreams are truly from God, He'd empower them to happen, right? Certainly there can be timing issues, but I wonder if there might be more to it.

Often, there can be fear related to the dream. While it is sometimes good to step out even when one feels afraid, I think it can be important to understand this a bit more. Perfect love is what casts out fear. Let's say a person has a goal that they will find ten random people on the streets and that they will pray to receive Christ after praying for them for healing (or whatever). First of all, it is a bad idea to have a goal that involves other people (as we have no control of it), but let's just say that is a person's dream for the short-term. If a person's dream is all about them getting a lot of success in evangelism, they will probably feel a lot of fear about it. However, if what consumes them is not their dream or how they might look if they fail, but love for other people, then there is no concern about self and the love for others will compel them to reach out and talk to those people (which will be a lot healthier for the person receiving anyway - they would much rather be loved than be a part of another person's goal).

I guess the whole point is that life was meant to be more about serving than having our own adventures and fun. And one starts to discover that serving others in what they are passionate about it IS fun!