More than Sparrows?

I can't really put my finger on this or perhaps fully articulate it, but I have got to confess that I am strangely worried these days.

Anybody else?

This is a hard thing to describe. A knot in my stomach. A lingering doubt. It really seems closest to that feeling you get as a child when you are about to get caught for something you did wrong. About to get found out. I suppose there are plenty of reasons to be afraid these days: the economy, swine flu, the wait for interest rates to hit my target before they spiral up and out of reach and blow my chance to refinance this crazy loan (ok, that last one is a bit specific). Heck, I'm sure I've done several things - recently, even - that I really could get caught for, if I'm going to be honest!

But here's the problem: In spite of the economy and the swine flu and all the other things that could be worrisome, I'm actually doing pretty well. Great job. Great family. Great friends. Deepening relationships. A future so bright and all that... So what is this pervasive and disquieting doubt?

I have, for the last year or so, been working to unify myself. I've been watching for signs of "work Tom" or "home Tom" or "church Tom" and, little by little, drawing them all into a single "Tom" that doesn't have to work so damn hard all the time at matching his circumstance. In my small circle we call these "other me's" The Poser(s) - a simple and accurate label for a wide ranging problem. What is far less simple, for me, is the manner in which I discern The Poser from The Real Me...I mean, honestly, who can tell? My 36 years of hard work in this regard makes that answer far tougher than you might think.

So this idea of "being caught" makes some measure of sense, given the whole Poser issue, right? And I think the circumstances of life (Global Warming, Economy, Interest Rates, insert-universal-concern-here) are likely accomplices in hightening my fear. I mean the implications of failure, of being caught, really are severely hightened, right? The stakes in this game are fairly great, aren't they? This all makes so much sense that I'm nearly ready to move on, to stomach my fear and "man up." I'm ready to get back to the work of life save for this one, lingering question:

Who am I afraid of?

I mean, really, who exactly is going to do "the catching?"

I do not believe that my God is in the business of lurking nearby, lying in wait to pounce on my failings... ready to celebrate my losses. Or do I? "The currency of the kingdom is belief," my friend Tad often says. Doesn't my ongoing fear betray my supposed statement of belief?

So now I'm in trouble. My fear is obviously symptomatic of my disbelief...my doubt...my sin. I'm blowing it - no wonder I'm afraid of being caught. I fundamentally doubt it all, doubt God's goodness, and my life reflects that doubt through anxiety and fear. So now I've got fear and I've got guilt over my fear and I better find someplace quiet to pray and repent and hope for rescue. Man - where is an altar when I need one?"

Oh, wait. Hope. Rescue. A "unified" me. Transformed.

Man - the enemy moves fast in my life; spiraling through layers into ever deepening darkness. Fear. Death. Anxiety. Bad news yet to come. And guilt over it all. Didn't Christ say something about the sparrows once? Didn't He say "so much more than they?"

I heard a quote today from a fella named Irenaeus: "The Glory of God is man fully alive." Unified. Fully. Alive. No Posing.

And the enemy hates it.

Is it more likely that God is convicting me in all this, or that the enemy wants me to live convicted? If I am living toward His glory by becoming more fully alive, and I can count on that movement being opposed by the one who seeks to devour and destroy, it doesn't make a lot of sense to credit the fear OR the guilt to the Lord...does it?

I do not know how soon God will unknot this fear. I do not know His plan for me in detail (though I think this writing, this working through, is a part of His plan). I do not know what else to do but try to remember, "I believe...please help my unbelief." But I do not choose to carry this burden or the rest of the baggage that the enemy conspires (yes conspires...implying "with me") to heap on top of it. I do not choose to live in my fear or even to "man up" in spite of it.

"The opposite of fear is love," my Dad once said. It is perhaps the truest positive lesson he ever taught me. Heck, it even sounds biblical (ok, see 1 John 4:18 if you like to connect the dots).

Unifying Me is my labor of love to God's greater glory in the midst of fear and doubt...in this face of this fear, I guess I'll choose to love.