Fear and Trembling

This is a season of working out my salvation with fear and trembling.

Fear and trembling because I have sinned greatly, am totally helpless to fix my own heart and am completely naked before the throne of a holy, righteous, and just God.

I understand what the fear of God means now more than I ever have in my life. I have felt almost nothing but terror for a month now. The fear of God is borne out of taking a deep look into your own heart, into your desires, into your motivations, and facing the depravity that you find inside yourself. You look inside and realize that you are despicable and filthy to your core, that there is not one shred of good intention inside that rebellious heart of yours. You see darkness, filth. You realize that, if left to your own devices, you are going to continue along the same path you have always been on. You realize that if you continue, you will die. You will die.

We go through life with this false sense of immortality. We say we know that someday we'll die, but we do not really believe it. We believe that our sin doesn't affect anyone but us, but we deceive ourselves. We live each day as though they will just keep coming, over and over - the sun will keep rising, our lungs will keep filling with air, our car will complete the commute to and from work without accident each day. These are all illusions. There is no safety. There are no guarantees. The only thing keeping you alive this very moment - and every moment thereafter - is the sheer grace and patience of God. Jonathan Edwards likened this to a spider being dangled over the flames of hell by but a slender thread of silken web, capable of being severed at any moment.

I am the spider.

True fear of God arises when this fact settles upon your soul and you realize that God does not owe you another breath. He does not owe you another day to figure things out. There is no guarantee you will be alive at this time next week.

Are you in a position to meet your maker within one week? If you knew that your life would end in 7 days, if you knew that in 7 days you would be standing before God to give an account for your life - how would you live differently? The truth is that this possibility is very, very real.

And as I stood on the deck of a cruise ship sailing across endless blue oceans and stared out at the setting sun, I realized - truly realized - that I was going to die. Soon. I would not continue living forever. I would face Him someday, and that someday might come much sooner than I anticipated. Would I presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience - unrepentant?

I have never, ever known the kind of terror that comes with that realization. It is worse than any fear I have ever felt because you cannot run from it. You can avoid places, things, people, movies, books that scare you - you can't escape your own soul or His justice. The weight of the Law weighs on you and haunts you.

I helped serve communion at church two weeks ago when they had an unexpected need for a couple people. Standing there at the front of the sanctuary, holding two goblets of wine and listening to the band play softly, the fear gave way to despair and brokenness.

"Jesus paid it all . . . all to Him I owe . . ."

The goblets shook, wine threatening to spill over their edges, as I trembled and fought back sobs. I knew I shouldn't be there. I looked down at the wine, blurry through tear-filled eyes, and almost dropped the glass goblets.

My hands are holding the blood I've spilled. His blood is all over my hands.

On a surface level, I know that it is all these things that make grace and the Gospel as powerful as they are. Our depravity highlights the riches of His grace and mercy. But I have known these things the way I know that two plus two is four. I have the sense that I have not yet fully known them on the level we are meant to, or that I have forgotten them. And so my hunger grows. My desperate need for Him grows. My sense of urgency grows. My need to get close to and stay close to Him, my need to throw myself at the foot of His cross, to feel the rough hewn timber and the splinters digging into my fingers, to see the blood run down from pierced hands and feet and to know that my sin is atoned for by the sacrifice before me grows.

And perhaps that is why God is allowing this season to go as long as it is. He is not only the author but also the perfecter of our faith. He disciplines those He loves - a truth I cling to now like a man adrift at sea praying for rescue clings to a life ring.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Hope of redemption and transformation drive us to continual, daily repentance of our sin. Lose hope of that transformation, lose hope in the goodness of Christ, and you lose everything. Trying to live in and with Christ without a continually renewed sense of real hope in what He has promised is like trying to breathe in a room without oxygen. It will not work, and you can only hold your breath so long before you collapse.

Yet His goodness is so great that He is actually there to catch us as we collapse from our rebellion. We come crawling home like a prodigal sullied in mud, broken, filthy, desecrated. Screaming in wretched agony, we cry out, "I delight in your Law, oh God, for it exposes my sin - have mercy on me, a sinner!"

And He, in His unbelievable mercy and goodness, makes all things new. Makes us new.

Our sin may leave scars. There are consequences. There is music to face. But there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. His plan is not to harm us. His discipline is not to harm us. Jesus. In His nail-pierced hands and feet I find freedom. Surrender of sin so that it may be nailed to the cross instead of me. Freedom from shame, from guilt, from fear and terror, from my past, present, and future. Forgiveness. Instead of the spikes that should be driven through them, my hands are filled with the wealth of His grace.

This is my collapse.

Praise God.

Make me new.