In the Moment

I am basically a chicken.

I thought, until last month, that my fear was regulated to the normal phobias.

Spiders.

Falling off, or for that matter, standing upon anything more than… say 5 feet off the ground.

Living in a camper the rest of my life.

Barreling down steep hills, with no control, on a piece of inflated rubber.

You know, normal everyday type of fears.

Well, December rolled around and boy howdy did I have a lot to learn about my fears.

Turns out I am not so normal after all.

I know. Shocker.

After a month of panic attacks that were brought on by a plethora of things like: small spaces, large places, new places, new people, old people (the kind I have known for a while, not the aged variety), cooking, shopping, lack of money, illness, dying, the phone ringing, text messages needing answered….the list goes on and on and on.  I pretty much figured out I might possibly have a fear issue.

Who knew?

It was an abnormal experience for me, as I have never really experienced anything like that.  Ever.

Not one to waste horrid experiences, I decided to ponder what my real issue is, because fear is just the symptom…right?

As best as I can tell, I have a control issue and a trust issue.

I want to be in control and I’m not.

I don’t really trust the One who is.

Pretty crappy for someone who has been supposed to have been walking with Jesus for the last ten years.

It is what it is.

As a result, I decided for my New Year’s resolution I would determine to conquer some of my fears this year, and try to put myself in positions where I must trust God to save me, or kill me.  Which ever He would prefer.

Truth be told, I figured I could break this one like every other resolution I have ever made.  At the very least I thought I could put it off a while.  Like December 21, and then we would find out the Mayan’s are right and I would have an excuse for why I did not follow through.

Of course not.

Yesterday we were invited to go tubing.  Not the water and boat variety, which I find terrifying as well, but the barreling down a step hill on an inflated piece of rubber variety.

I was simply tagging along to take pictures.  Somehow how I thought my meer presence there would save my children from broken bones, so that was just an added bonus for showing up.

Some people I know are so pushy.  They have that peer pressure thing down good.  These are the type of people who also fling small children off their tubes and send the sliding across the ice, making them sob and cry.

I tried giving excuses.

I might pee my pants, was one of my best.

No good, these people know I have seen Tim Hawkins live.

So there I was, refusing to go.  Content on the top.

When that Hound of Heaven began barking at me.

OK, it wasn’t barking, but it sure felt like it.

“This would be a good time to trust me.  You know that resolution you made.  Save you or kill you, you said.  I think you should go ahead and try that now.”

Seriously, I was terrified.  This might seem like a walk among the daisy to everyone else on the planet, but I was TERRIFIED.

This wasn’t the kiddy hill.

It took a good many minutes once I got the tube to get going, and I screamed like a school girl all the way down BUT I did it.

It wasn’t as fun as everyone said it was going to be, but admittedly it wasn’t horrible.

 

Here I am before, all laughter and smiles.  When really I was shaking, and scared, and worried I would pee my pants.

Instigators, the whole lot of them.

Here I am afterward.  Thankfully, my pants were still dry.  That’s not a smile on my face either, it’s a grimace.  Don’t confuse the two.

The funny thing is as I was going down, digging my toes as deep as I could into the snow in a feeble attempt to go slow,  I wasn’t thinking about peeing my pants, broken bones, death, or the people around me making fun of the woman screaming like a baby.  I was thinking about Jesus.   Only Him.  In those few seconds, everything else faded away.  It didn’t just seem unimportant to think about, it was NO WHERE on my mind.

Isn’t that what Christ truly wants from me?  Is that what it means to seek first His kingdom?  To commit your ways unto Him?  To be heavenly minded?  To cast your cares upon Him?  When He is in my view, and the consuming thought of my heart and mind is, “Jesus I need you this moment.  All I have is you and whether you save me of kill me, I trust you.  I’m taking this leap, using this moment for you.”  Doesn’t everything else in life fade in light of that thinking, in light of that living?

I have spent too much time thinking and worrying about things I can do nothing about and not nearly enough time focused on Jesus.

Doing that makes everything but HIM look big.

When I have my priorities right, everything looks minuscule in compared to Him.

Lord forgive me for making you look small, for my lack of trust, for fear and worry, and for putting myself in the place that only you belong.

Help me to live with only you as my consuming vision, in the moment.