Fear-fighting

Here's my dilemma: my pastor told me (well, told the whole church during the sermon on Sunday) that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world and in my heart and that the choice lies with me to either quench the fire He is building (by not doing what He commands or prompts me to do) or actively work with Him to make it burn more fiercely. That is, if I ask the Spirit to lead me and transform me, He will; I just need to actually follow the leading He gives instead of closing my eyes and my ears and going my own way. But you know what? It is far easier to ask the Spirit to do those things in my life than to change the way I live and the choices I make in response to the work He is doing.

There are two fears fighting against my desire to submit to the will and work of the Spirit in my life, I think. The first, which is lesser, is the fear of coming up short - the fear that, after asking the Spirit to lead me, I will fail at following Him, and in so doing disappoint God and render my witness ineffectual. "Why ask at all," this fear whispers, "when the result could be more humiliating than if you had never tried in the first place?" But this fear is feeding me lies, because our approval from God, as Christians, comes from the righteousness of Christ, not our own ability (or lack thereof) to follow God as He desires. So my failure would not cause me to lose God's love, and I believe that He would rather have me try to follow Him than have me simply give up in despair before beginning. As Screwtape said (and I paraphrase), the sin of despair is worse than the sins that lead to it.

The second fear, which is stronger, is the fear of having my life turned upside down - of being called to do crazy things, and having to deal with the reactions of my family and friends and acquaintances, and having to give up the comforts I enjoy or my little happy dreams or the cozy small plans I've made for my life. If I honestly and wholeheartedly followed the Spirit as He led me, I guarantee you that things in my life would have to change. Many of these changes would be small, but I think some might border on the extreme, especially if I begin by obeying those small leadings rather than quenching the Spirit in those areas. And I'm afraid of what might happen, because it is so unknown and because God gives no promise of safety or comfort (He never does, you know). My heart wants to hold on to the small things that don't matter, and so it is afraid of following a God who emphasizes the temporal nature and insignificance of those things. This fear isn't feeding me lies, but it is hiding the truth. All these things might indeed happen if I began to truly follow God, and there very probably would be some degree of emotional pain involved, but what this fear conceals is the depth of joy and the fulfillment of being that is only found in trust in and obedience to God. Am I not willing to trade in the (at least relatively) shallow happiness that I can make for myself by going my own way for the unfathomable joy that I could find by knowing God and going His way?

These fears have to be addressed head-on, I think - to expose the underlying deceit, and to combat them with the strength of truth. Maybe I can ask the Spirit for His guidance and transformation... maybe I can seek to obey His leading with a heart that chooses to trust rather than to fear.