Undaunted: Daring to do what God calls you to do by Christine Caine

Author:Christine Caine
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780310333883
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2012-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

LOVE ENOUGH TO BELIEVE

“Do you love me?” Jesus asked Peter (John 21:17). It’s really a question for each of us.

If you love me, he was saying, then look at me (Matthew 14:22–33). Keep your eyes on me.

If you love me, follow me (Matthew 16:24).

If you love me, go and do likewise (Luke 10:37).

If you love me, feed my sheep (John 21:15–17). Tend my lambs.

For years I yearned for deliverance from my fears — but I wanted something more than the Lord’s simple instructions to keep my eyes on him. Instead, I prayed fervently for him to remove my fears — especially my fear of flying. I demanded, “Why won’t you just take this fear from me? After all, I’m getting on this plane for you!”

And God, in his tender mercy, sent me back to his Word. God “has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV). He knows that fear will not get us through danger. But love can, and a sound mind will, and courage. Courage, after all, is not the absence of fear. It’s the will to persevere even in the face of fear. God’s power resides in us, but we’re not always confident of that because we can’t see it. We do see the dangers — being too high off the ground, perhaps, or staring into the cold face of an enemy. So we doubt, we question — and we let fear take over.

When Jesus asks, Do you love me? he is also saying: Then keep your eyes on me. Keep believing in what I have created you to do. Turn over to me your fear, and hold fast to faith in me. Replace that fear — fear that I did not give you — with the love, power, and sound mind that I have given you. Know that my presence is your antidote to fear.

He knew that we would be afraid, that we would doubt. That’s why he tells us again and again in the Bible, “Fear not.” Three hundred and fifty times he tells us. Fear not. Fear not. Fear not. Fear not. When angels appeared to characters in the Bible, the first words they spoke were usually, “Fear not.”

It’s like a mother instinctively reaching for her child crying in the storm, wrapping her arms around the trembling heart, and soothing over and over, “It’s okay. I’m here with you. Don’t be afraid.”

It’s like the time Nick and I took the girls to an amusement park. They were so excited, and the thing Catherine was most excited about was playing on the gigantic trampoline — the kind where you are secured into a harness and then can bounce into the air, rise and twirl, turn and toss high like an acrobat in the circus.

Catherine beamed as the operator buckled her into the harness and began to lift her cable. We all watched as she was elevated and then released to bounce off the trampoline, gradually bouncing higher and higher.

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