HomeI’m afraid. Honestly. I’m afraid. I look at things going on in the world, in the nation, in the economy. I look in at my children at night while they sleep peacefully. They are oblivious to the goings on in the world of adults and politics and work. I see though, the things going on, the way things are heading, the craziness of power and money and materialism and it scares me. If that’s all I think about. I have a bent towards pessimism. If you asked my wife, she would tell you it’s true. So I see things going on and they seem illogical and so I tend to be pessimistic that things are going to go well. I don’t know. Some would argue that all that’s going on is not a big deal. I can’t see that either. I tend to be very focused and often have tunnel vision on problems to the point that I can’t do anything but try to solve the problem so I can move on. I can’t solve the problems that I see. They are beyond me, I’m afraid.
“You can’t be afraid, Tom” some might say. True, I shouldn’t be. I trust in God, in Christ, who has saved me. The bible says I have nothing to fear. That is true. And there is a war going on inside, the war between the spirit and the flesh. My spirit, renewed by God says “trust in the Lord” while my flesh that fears discomfort and pain and poverty says “all is lost”. So on one hand I am afraid and on the other I am secure. It feels strange to have this conflict internally. It feels even stranger to put it out there and identify it.
I want the best for my children, not materially, but spiritually. My flesh would tell me that material things will give them the best, that comfort will give them success, that the potential pain of hard times will harm them. I believe that this is untrue. I look at my life, the comforts I’ve had, the few struggles and compare that with some of the things my parents or grand parents went through. It is nothing. So when I say that I am afraid, I am afraid that I am unequipped to handle what might come. Do I have the strength to stand up under the pressures of life? Will my children see my hope in God or my fear of life? I fear being tested because I might fail.
If I think about these things too much, if I watch the news too much, I am tempted to lose heart, to lose faith. I have to remind myself that the one who redeemed me has claimed me and that nothing can undo that. I have to keep pressing toward teaching my children truth and telling them who I have put my faith and hope in and why. Telling them our condition and need for a savior and then explaining to them who that is and why.
Why? I currently want for nothing. my children want for nothing. If my children want for nothing and I want for nothing, then how can we want for God? I don’t know what might happen in the future. I trust no politician. Spending at this level can bring nothing good. I do not believe in the continued indefinite success of any nation, history shows that they all have their season and subside. I want our nation to succeed and prosper, I just don’t think it’s going to happen, not the path we are on. Hard times will come. In one form or another they always do. Hard times make people cry out to who they trust in. Why am I afraid? Because I have such a short time of influence with my children to teach them who they can trust to cry out to and I don’t want to miss it and I don’t want to mess it up. I’ve had it so easy in this life, have I truly learned this myself?
I want to stand up under the test. I want to please my master. I want to have faith that although my flesh says “doom” my spirit resoundedly yells “saved”. When I say I’m afraid, it is my flesh speaking. For I know, and hope to know better, that Christ has already gone to the cross in my place and He is risen. So if He has been raised and I belong to Him and trust in Him, then no matter my situation or condition here, no matter if I go hungry or if I live in torment or if I die, nothing can separate me from my eternity with Him.
I want to give my children hope, through teaching, through example. I want it to be real, not just some pat answer or saying. I don’t want to say the external while the internal is opposite. Children can see lies. They can see your hope and where it lies. I don’t want to say I’m not afraid when I am, but I want to explain how I can be afraid in my flesh and confident in my spirit. I want to show how to combat fear and encourage hope in our savior.
I pray that I continue to preach this to myself in the face of trials that come and that my children learn these same truth’s in the coming years. I do not know how we will fare here, but I do know that I am here and my children are here for a purpose, to bring God glory, one way or another. What better way than struggling through trials and wrestling with hope and faith and security and placing them all in God and not in things or people or the world.
I’m afraid yet I’m secure, I’m His, I cannot be taken out of His hand. By His grace may the same become for my children and for those that don’t now know Him.