The post that went away with fear and CAME BACK WITH COURAGE

"TAKE COURAGE!" That's what my good God just spoke to my heart at my Esther bible study in Houston tonight. I want to face my fear and focus on what's more important than fear. Moving out with my good God convinced of His Great Love for even me...

Before I left for Houston this a.m., I wrote the following post for my blog. I decided not to publish the post out of fear that it wasn't good enough or I wasn't blogging like I was supposed to or it was way way too long or I had used someone's quote and wasn't original...a nagging sense that I did the wrong thing. Always feel like I am doing the wrong thing. Oh my---I can't even blog right. So I hit delete instead of enter. After sitting through the bible study on Esther tonight, I was so moved by the Holy Spirit to face my fear and I just got to a computer tonight and quickly typed the fledgling post back up. I don't want fear to control my life.

Something shifted in me tonight as I left the study and spent the next hour driving, talking and crying out to my beautiful God, alone in my SUV, following behind Tina caravaning to Galveston. I'll remember this night forever...I'll tell you another time about what I learned. It's one of those studies where God so showed up SESSION 4 of ESTHER YOU WILL REMEMBER...one decision I made tonight will alter my days to come. The bible study was on Esther 4 --- who knows if she was there in the kingdom for such a time as this? Something shifted in Esther to bring her to the brink of her decision---"if I perish, I perish." That's true courage!

So I am not hitting the delete button and here's the post that went away with fear and came back with courage...

Set my heart on Pilgrimage
Set my heart on Pilgrimage...ooohhh! Psalm 84:5
All I know is that I am so yearning for my good God and He may not be safe but, oh, is He ever good. I'm reading Psalm 84 and the pilgrimage part just jumps out at me. Psalm 84:2 says my soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord. My heart cries out for the living God. In the RSV it is translated "shouts for joy." I am at a place where I feel like I am shouting inside to my God all the time crying out for Him, and shouting for joy even in the midst of not much happening in my physical world---yet so much happening in my spiritual world. I read verses like Job 19:25-27 where Job said: "I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end He will stand upon the earth." And I want to stand up and SHOUT...cause I know it, I know it...and Job said, "how my heart yearns within me...I myself will see Him with my own eyes." Oh that I may see Him...

I am walking out the door on a petite pilgirmage to Houston in a just a moment to go to a Beth Moore Esther bible study. Going to Houston to experience the God in Beth Moore...and...the pilgrimage itself of what will happen when I am with Tina in her condo in Galveston talking with my good friend and experiencing my good God on an awesome Texas beach. As a Christian our pilgrimage is about going but it is also about arriving Home one day.

Someone once said that pilgrimage does not mean walking through as much as it does setting up a temporary lodging in the midst of our circumstance. A Temporary Lodging of Life. We are just passing through on our way to Home. Set my heart on my pilgrimage my dear God. For as C.S. Lewis says: we were made for another world and we are on our way Home...therefore my story doesn't define me or contain me...I am here for Him...

Here on earth we are pilgrims and the Lord's Prayer teaches us to ask for our daily bread. Sometimes my daily bread arrives with tears and fears. He's a good God but it's not the safe road that is always in front of me. Sometimes it looks like the battle I am in is a losing one. The Valley of Baca in Psalm 84:6 translates "Valley of Weeping"---and it was called that because of the Palestinian alders that weep sap in that valley. That valley is also called the Valley of Rephraim. Rephraim meant the giants in the land but they were long gone---wiped out. Someone said that Rephraim meant "ghosts" to the Hebrews cause they really remembered those giants. Do I think the safe road is no tears, no fears, no giants, no ghosts. You know C.S. Lewis' quote - He's good, but He's not safe.

Tears in what I have lost in this world
Fears of those giants in my life who are long gone yet still here like haunting ghosts.
TOUCH TASTE, TEARS FEARS, GIANTS GHOSTS, GRACE GLORY, STRENGTH STRENGTH
"Blessed are those whose strength is in You, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. They go from Strength to Strength." psalm 84: 5-7

I WONDER WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO LIVE WITHOUT FEAR?? (Beth asked that question tonight at the bible study.)
I DON'T KNOW...
BUT I DO KNOW THAT I JUST JUMPED IN WITH BOTH FEET TO FACE A FEAR AND POST WHAT I WAS AFRAID TO SAY...THERE...I SAID IT...I WONDER WHAT I AM REALLY AFRAID OF? i think maybe i am afraid to fail again since my husband lost his ministry job...but I recognize that a little COURAGE IS RISING UP IN ME that could only come from my good God...Let my heart not be afraid,
"Take Courage!"
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by Bev Brandon
8:13:00 AM