Do Not Hide Your Fear

C. S. Lewis wrote on Faith, as one of the Christian virtues, in his book Mere Christianity, and said this:

Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.

So Faith is not something you have when you are quite sure a thing is- when the thing is dancing naked in front of you and you can't help but know it's there. Faith is, apparently, employed especially when you aren't witnessing the thing. It reminds me of how babies have to learn object permanence; that apparently when a parent goes out of the room, they don't know the parent exists anymore (and start crying). So perhaps as babies we learn a simple form of Faith. We all know that we have to trust what we once saw, as it would be silly if we had to sit and stare at something to keep knowing it exists.

I have been thinking of Faith in relation to prayer. One must have Faith in God to believe requesting things in prayer is worthwhile. I do not, for some reason, believe that it is worthwhile right now. I desire things that I think are not possible, specifically getting reasonably beyond my anxiety and its causes.

L'Abri Fellowship came to my mind today, and I remembered that it would probably be good for me to dive into some L'Abri lectures again, instead of philosophical-psychological-political whatnot on YouTube (of which my conscience seems to think I have my fill). So I listened to a little that is called An Introduction to L'Abri, but the beginning has so far been Dr. Francis Schaeffer (a founder of L'Abri) talking about what a miracle that conference was, as it almost fell right through, and telling the conference-goers that that conference was either as miraculous as the beginning of L'Abri itself, or even more so, and that he believes the word 'miracle' to be a very, very sober word.

L'Abri Fellowship was sustained, one might say, on trusting God to provide what they needed. Reading the story in Edith Schaeffer's L'Abri is quite inspiring, if you're open to what can sometimes sound too good to be true (at-times-cynical person here).

As I listened to Dr. Schaeffer, I realised that I do think that God did that then, for them, but He wouldn't do great things for me, now. As if miracles only happen in the past, and for other people. I can't possibly ask God for that; that would be expecting, and being ungrateful for what I have now! It would not be trusting Him to ask for things. And I am supposed to look back on L'Abri and other examples of God's faithfulness and have those examples sustain my faith now, even though I feel dry, and as if all is a lie. God is testing me: I must believe now in this present desert, or else I'm not really a Christian.

The fear in that, that God does not really care for me enough to want me to ask Him for things, controls me now. I've known it for years and years. And what do I do with it? I try to make myself not afraid. I imagine that being afraid is wrong, somehow, and that God won't give me what I want if I'm afraid He won't give it! But then I lie to Him. And while I pray, I try to conjure the answer in myself... I pray not to be anxious, and I try to be not anxious. I try to somehow contain it. But what happens is I stop breathing, and get stomach aches and constipation, I can't relax my shoulders and I find myself clenching my jaws. I can't pray; I don't want to pray. I can't ask God for things if I have to fulfill it myself: what's the point? I do not want a world where I have to be God. But I have this horrible perverted notion that I ought to do these things or else God will not want to answer my prayers.

Bravery cannot exist when there is no fear. Psalm 27 says at the end: 'Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say on the LORD.' Why would there be a call to courage, if we did not fear? There is no courage except from fear. So I must not be afraid that I am afraid. God does not ask me to leave my fear behind before I come to Him. I believe He wants us to be like little children, entirely and completely ourselves, full of fears and worries, and only if we come to Him like that will He be able to soothe us out of our fears.

In bringing our follies and sins to light in prayer to God, they will be exposed to the light, and then they can be changed. But as long as we hide them in the dark, either trying to cure them before we come to God or deceiving ourselves that they are not bad, God cannot change our hearts. We must not keep anything from Him: even our doubt. God does not expect us to be perfectly sure of Him, and sense seems to indicate that we never can be perfectly sure of anything, anyway. He only asks that we be a child before Him, admitting just how we are, and He loves us that way. Just if we come to Him. After all, Jesus became our sin and went to Hell in our place so that God could look on us without judgement (for He cannot be unjust and ignore sin), but see us only as the lovely creations He intended us to be in the Beginning.