Fears and Doubts

​I’m not a music person. Well, not any more.

As a younger person, I had music playing within my hearing almost all the time – in my car, my bedroom, my living room stereo. Over the years my preferences changed but the music stayed on.
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In recent years, it’s the lyrics more than the music that move me. 

In church one Sunday, a particular section of a song stood out to me. It said

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“And you meet me here today With mercies that are new
All my fears and doubts They can all come too
Because they can't stay long when I'm here with You.”
​(The Way [New Horizons] by Housefires)

“All my fears and doubts they can all come too.” Wait – what?

​They’re mine, as in I own them? Was this a late night shopping channel drunk-purchase?

          “Hello? Um, yeah, I’ll take some of that future fear, and some of that there job and
          money fear, too. What’s that you say? With those items I can get a package of general
          irrational fears (heights, spiders, etc.) completely free? Hmm … I’m feeling a little uncertain
          about that one.”

Yeah. I don’t think so. 

It’s actually the next line that got me thinking (well, real thoughts, anyway) … “Because they can't stay long when I'm here with You.”

They have the ability and option to just leave - that's their choice?

Hold the phone!

Are you saying that proximity to God will repel my fears and doubts like magnets with the same polarity? (That’s a post for another day!) That my fears fall away and my doubts resolve simply because I am close to God? That sounds like it’s on me; like I’m the one that’s needs to move towards God while He remains in His place – wherever that is.
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But isn’t it God who moved towards us in pursuit of relationship by sending Jesus to become one of us? 

What happens if I move away from God? Do my fears and doubts come back? Am I of the opposite polarity, actually attracting my fears back to me? Has the all-powerful God of the Universe really given me that much of His power – the power to move beyond His reach?

Then it hit me:

My fears don’t vanish or my doubts resolve just because God is near.
They become irrelevant.  

Being close to God doesn’t take my fears away; when I focus on Him, my fears fade into the periphery

Being close to God doesn’t resolve my doubts; His love supersedes my questions.

And because I bear the image of God, and I carry His Spirit within me, I am never apart from Him.

So my fears – irrelevant.
My doubts – irrelevant.

It’s really a matter of focus, not of proximity. And I get to choose what I look at.

Will I focus on my fears and on my doubts, or will I focus on God? Because when I focus on God, all my fears and doubts can all come too, but they really don’t matter. They are made irrelevant.