Fear is the Life Stealer

The current season is not over.  Duh.  It is the current season.  It can't be over.

The current season has progressed enough that there is opportunity to assess.  Assess the progress.  Assess the damage.  Assess the healing needed and the healing accomplished.

The assessment makes it clear that there was a lot of life lost, stolen.  And fear is the life stealer.  That is what fear does.  The present is filled up with possible futures.  The mind is pre-occupied, occupied in advance.  Wow.  And occupation is the operative term.  Forces bent upon domination have moved in and are dominating.

Wow.  Dominion.  Fear operating in my mind has been given dominion over a kingdom, in this case the kingdom of my mind and all that it is able to do. The gift of the organizing tools helps greatly to push the future out where it belongs, but that is not the same as saying "No!" to the fear that I have given permission to reign.

Yes.  We were given dominion over the earth.  Then we as a race gave the earth over to death.  But I and my world were purchased back from death, and death was even utterly defeated.  While I was dead, I developed habits of submitting to fear and death.  Now I am learning to see those habits and confess them. I have learned that this is a supernatural thing, and I need supernatural help every day to bring light to the dark places of my soul.  And to bring light to the dark places in the souls of my neighbors.


In the midst of this, as I am acknowledging how much has been stolen, I am reminded of how much was preserved until the day that dominion was returned to Christ.  As ever, you have been keeping me, even when I have been turning my back on you.

Father, thank you for reaching out and plucking me from the miry clay.  Thank you for washing me, robing me, ringing me (decorating me, making me peculiar) and shoeing me (telling me about my present and future), all while I am trying to tell you about the past.

Well, I guess that at any given moment I get to chose to listen to you telling me about my future, or I get to listen to fear.  I ask myself how I could be so foolish to have made / be making the fear choice, but that is where my habits are.  Father, help me form new life and light and love habits to obliterate the death ruts.