(“Lemonade out of lemons” in a Christian context)
Okay… You’re probably thinking, “What’s he talking about now-- not fearing fear? Fear sure isn’t something I want around the house!”.
True, fear is not a pleasant thing. It’s been a stumbling block in many a life and career, caused confusion, bigotry, and hatred--the list could go on and on…
BUT: If St. Paul’s advice to “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” bolsters another biblical quote, “Faith without works is dead”, isn’t fear, in this context, an asset, and in no way a liability?
In my own church, we refer to “theosis”… plain language: an ongoing process of deification…becoming Christlings or “little Christs”. If a nice healthy fear of losing our place in a blessed and blissful eternity feeds and accelerates this process, I think we can thank God we have it!
We might expand this to include another “negative” in our salvation toolbox: past sins and sorrow over them. This is one of the paradoxes inherent in Christianity. On the one hand, once sins are forgiven, they are said to be placed as “far away as the east is from the west”--on the other hand, occasional remembrance of these dark things in our past can help us fight the greatest enemy of all for the Christian, namely, pride, and point us toward one of the greatest friends, humility.
It’s rather hard to think of yourself as a great Christian when you reflect on “darknesses” in your past-- those things dark enough for some, they’d rather die than have them exposed to others. It’s been said everyone has something like that in their past. I can hardly believe that’s true, considering some of the fine Christians I’ve known. But most of them seem to simply have a natural humility already!
“Straight is the way and narrow is the gate which leadeth unto life, and few there be who find it”. It’s my firm conviction that Christianity is a process and love is an action verb. It’s not for the faint of heart and not for the complacent (and, while I’m at it, don’t expect me to claim any great attainment regarding all this--I’m just headed in the right direction and I’m trying)…
So, I would advise you to use these “tools”. There are others I can think of, like, (of all things) doubt, the subject of my next post. Yep--another “negative” I believe can help us get through some of the minefields awaiting us on our Christian journeys.
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