“For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.” (Job 3:25)
Did you know that there is now agreement among scientists that the very fear of a certain disease, such as cancer, my have a lot more to do with why we get it than we ever suspected? God has known that since he breathed life into us and tried to teach us that very lesson through the life of Job. Isn’t it strange that while science and religion fight to convince us that no common ground exists on which they may stand, science has proven that God’s word was right all along. Indeed, as God told the prophet Isaiah: “…so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
I, too, am learning how to deal with fear. As a Christian, I feared when I started this column that it would eventually end up in the wrong hands, and be used by people as a source of darkness instead of a source of light. Any Christian whose worth his weight in salt should know that the cynics who knew us when we were “the way we were” would never believe that such a radical change could take place.
I should not have been surprised to learn that my fear was now reality. Yet, this past weekend, while on a visit to North Carolina, I was shopping and ran into a former employee with whom I once worked who told me that one of my columns had shown up in the office. While she was complimentary about the change in me, I felt a rush of fear. In fact, I rushed home to read the very article she mentioned in an effort to figure out what was in it at which anyone could take aim. I knew that others in her office, especially her boss, would not find favor with the change. I realized that God decided it was again time to test my faith.
If we turn to God’s word, we have no trouble finding similar circumstances in the life of other believers such as Job. In fact, Paul, while in prison, wrote a letter to the church a Philippi and gives some great advice to those of us who are trying to convince others that the past is past. “Brothers,” he said, “I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)
There is no doubt in my mind that Paul understood what it was like to have a haunting past. He killed Christians for the pure sport of it before he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Paul knew that he could never outrun his past. Wherever, he traveled, there would those who would inevitably raise doubts about the change in him. But God through Paul tells us that we are “…a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
The same is true with any Christian. Wherever we go, the consequences of the sins that we have committed, before and after salvation, will follow us. But, we can’t allow Satan to age our salvation to turn others away from Christ. We, like Paul, must forgive ourselves and then move on. Indeed, we should hold on to God’s promise that we are “born again”, and we must also never forget what Jesus promised about how the world may look at us after salvation: “I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.” (John 3:7, 11)
How did I handle my fear that someone out there would never believe that the change in me is real? Well, I realized that I’m now an altitude above and a runway behind. So, I added him to my mailing list and sent him a copy of the column that you just read. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” (Galatians 5:9)
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