Panic in London
In my previous post in this series I shared a story about a powerful experience I had of the Father's love. I had heard my Father's voice speaking words of love and affirmation over me, and I felt greatly loved and affirmed afterwards. But only for a few days, and then I was my old insecure self again. Why?
Why were the spiritual highs I experienced by encountering the living God always followed by desolate lows? Why couldn't I cement in my heart once and for all that my Father loves me? He gave the life of His only Son in exchange for me — isn't that enough? But that happened almost two thousand years ago. What about His love for me today?
In fact God has given me many proofs of His love for me. Six years after I met God, I was walking down a street somewhere. I was full of passion for following Jesus, but I was also a young man approaching thirty who was lonely and had no career in sight. I remember praying this prayer based on Ephesians 3:18:
Father, I know by now I should filled to the height and depth and breadth and length with your love, but to be honest, all I really want at this point in my life is a wife, a car and a career.
Very spiritual, wasn't I? And yet around a year later I was married, had a job as a high-school teacher, and had been given a free car. God loves when we are honest and He doesn't tolerate bullshit (a.k.a. hypocrisy, but I like the contemporary word better). And when that happened, I started to "get it" that God really did love me — in the here and now, and not just theologically.
But despite such spiritual experiences and answers to prayer, I still struggled with insecurity and self-doubt for many years, until one day when Ingrid and I were on vacation in London, England.
We had run out of cash (British pounds) and had used up our traveller's cheques. My debit card wouldn't work in the UK because of some issue. All we had were our credit cards, but we needed cash since not every establishment accepted credit cards. So I started to enter panic mode.
We went to a bank nearby, but they said they couldn't help us. Finally after running around for some time, we found a bank that with the help of our passports and phone calls was willing to advance us some cash on our credit cards.
"I am never going to let this happen to us again, " I shouted as we left the bank. I was in full-on panic mode by this time, and was determined to wear several money belts full of cash if we ever travelled outside Canada again.
And then at that moment I remembered something the Lord had spoken to me after we had been told we were done with the church-planting internship program we had been taking at a Vineyard church on the West Coast. I had felt like a failure because I hadn't demonstrated that I could multiply the homegroup we had started, and afterwards as I was reading through Isaiah part of a verse spoke to me:
Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you... (Isa 43:4 NIV)
When I read this I thought: that's the first time that God has said "I love you" to me. I felt somewhat encouraged and filed the words away in my journal, but deep down they didn't make much difference in how I felt about myself. But in London when those words came back to me, I suddenly understood why God had reminded me of them. Because if I am precious to Him, I need not have any fear about anything. And if I am honored in his sight, then I shouldn't consider myself a failure in His sight.
Precious — no fear.
Honored — no failure.
And, of course, loved.
So I used this verse to wrestle down the fear and panic that had been overwhelming me, and we continued with our vacation and enjoyed our remaining time in the UK.
And what had I learned? That I must exercise faith when God speaks to me or reveals Himself to me. I must believe what He says to me, and continue to believe even in the face of circumstances.
The following story in Mathew 14:22-31 is important in this regard:
Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"
While the heading for this passage in most Bibles is "Jesus walks on water" or something similar, a much better heading would be "Peter tries to walk on water." Because the lesson is really about learn how we, as followers of Jesus like Peter was, must learn how to exercise — and to continue to exercise — faith in every circumstance. It's the difference between walking on water or sinking into the depths of self-doubt and despair.
I've had many powerful experiences of God over the years: I've heard His voice, seen Him on His throne, and had other foretastes of the powers of the age to come (Hebrews 6:5). But until I began applying myself to believe what He says to me, especially concerning His love for me in Christ, the impact of all these many experiences didn't last.
And this — resolving to believe God — is what has finally enabled me to cement in my heart my Father's affirming love towards me, and to erase the roots of insecurity and self-doubt from my heart.
Not that I'm already perfect — but I'm getting there.
May you get there too, and soon!
—Mitch
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