Ramblings of a Believer

I hate heights!  In fact, I am deathly afraid of heights.  It is one of the few things that truly cause me anxiety.  A few years back my company was experimenting with Satellite technology and I had to accompany the satellite tech to the roof of our six story building.  I was fine up there right up until he walked to the edge of the roof and asked me to join him.  I was so terrified that I actually started to hyperventilate; it was so embarrassing.  What’s interesting is that I don’t experience this fear when I walk to the edge of a natural structure like the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  I can walk right up to the edge of a 300 foot drop-off with a 20 MPH wind at my back and it just doesn’t faze me. Why is that?  Honestly, I don’t really know, but I think it has something to do with my subconscious understanding that the Grand Canyon has been in place for thousands of years.  While it may experience changes over time, it does not shift from one day to the next; in fact, it hardly shifts from one century to the next.  On the other hand most buildings, especially in the United States, have been around less than a few decades.  As ridiculous as this may sound, I guess my simple mind feels like it could collapse at any second.

This is very similar to the way I feel when I walk without God’s power and presence in my life. In 2 Timothy 1:7 it says “⁷For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” It is so easy to forget that we are not alone because we have God’s power through the Holy Spirit with us in every situation.  With the Holy Spirit I don’t have to have all the answers, but I can rest assured that He is there to see me through.  There is another key piece to this verse that I don’t want to ignore; God gives us a spirit of Love as well.  Without love this power can come across as something other than confident and become something that turns people off instead of on. The spirit of Love and the spirit of self-discipline give us the ability to face any situation this world may throw at us in a bold and confident way. Fear is an emotion that God allows in every one of us and is what reminds us of our humanity.  But with the power of the Holy Spirit we can overcome that fear with a confidence that can only come from God.