We fear being alone. If we are not with people, we can’t resist the urge to hang out with our mobiles. It is when we are faced with this nothingness that we feel this deep urge to just run to anyone or anything. We want to run from this nothingness. But what happens if we confront it, we sit, we are alone and we are still. It is then that we can fully surrender to Christ in our realization that we are really nothing without Him.

It is when we are truly alone and in His presence, that we are transformed. We are to be transformed and not conformed. When people, their opinions and thoughts constantly surround us,we become victims of societies’ entanglement. Because, by the time you translate the thoughts in your head, some essence of them may be lost or just kept. We pray let the walls of Jerusalem be built; we pray let the walls around our hearts be built. But while we pray we must be patient and give the walls a chance because it is hard to put brick on brick when there is constant attack.

But how can we take this virtue of silence and the ability to be alone and use it to serve others? Done right, it should never be self-seeking, but a means to an end of loving more fully. Out of solitude comes compassion. Compassion is more than just pity; it is so much more; it is the tender heartedness in which we approach others with understanding and care. It is the ability to take on another’s burdens. It is the willingness to share the pain of others and like Simon of Cyrene, take the burden of the cross. But in order to get to that place, first we must be willing to go to that place of silence and solitude in order to leave behind our self and our pride. We need to really die so that we can be free to live for others

“To die to our neighbours means to stop judging them, to stop evaluating them, and thus to become free to be compassionate. Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.”- Henri Nouwen

All this being said, I am the chief of chatterboxes and socialising, I am the queen bee in the midst of a social web and for me silence is a struggle and being alone isn’t where I thrive. God just wants you to be you. God didn’t make me a chatter box for no reason. We are created to love, and we can love through our words and our time, but I think we also must also learn to love others and ourselves in our silence. We can find the middle ground, the Holy ground, and know that there is a time and a season for everything under the sun, a time to let the harvest grow and a time to be active and pull it out of the ground.

‘To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude’
– Henri Nouwen

To young me,

I was a little worried about writing to you as I am not sure how you would take this. You never really understood what was going on inside your heart and mind. You were walking aimlessly searching for something but you didn’t know what you were looking for. You met Christ at a young age but you never really let Him right in. You never let Him into the deep parts of your heart because you didn’t really know where that was. You only ever met Him at the door of your heart. A passion was growing inside of you for your Lord but you didn’t know where or how to pursue that passion.

As I reminisce at your younger years and read all your teachers reports, they all seem to read the same. ‘Veronia is very sociable and popular among her classmates.’ Really? Was that really you? It sure didn’t feel like that when you would come home to an empty space within yourself. You were alone. The echo of your loneliness deafened your ears to your pain.

You read your Bible, prayed and did all your Sunday school homework. You were able to answer questions about God and stories in the Bible but did you really know Who your Maker was? You were quiet, spent a lot of time thinking but what were you thinking about? You kept avoiding your wounds and suppressed hurts. You walked about with a godly mask saying ‘It’s not okay to not be okay because I have God. A Christian can’t be sad or angry or feel any hurt.’ You tried everything you could to avoid confronting your loneliness because it was painful. You equated being quiet with being lonely, everyone was a stranger to you. Your heart longed for something or someone but you didn’t know what or who. Through your high school years, you became independent, you didn’t need anyone. Speaking about your thoughts and feelings became such an alien thing to you. This illusion you had, that not sharing or speaking about how you feel was normal and wasn’t really necessary, is what brought you more harm than healing.

I remember that time when you were 11 years old and your first best friend of 6 years, walked away from you. The one person you invested so much time in, the one who you did everything with, betrayed your trust. You do know that that had a huge impact on you. You tried so hard to ignore how you felt and as a result, hurt resided inside of you. The pain that you never felt is what lured you into your cave of isolation. From that time onwards, you began a journey seeking to find community and belonging. Your Lord was growing a consuming passion within the depth of your heart. He used this experience to call you to the throne of Grace to cry out in the time of need. I wish you had laid your loneliness at His feet to realize the work of Grace that He was bestowing in your life from when you were 15. He was calling you to partake of Who He is so you can be what He is.

Let me tell you something a little crazy. What if I told you that the desert, the place of emptiness, the place of loneliness, that place you made your dwelling place for many years, is the place where your Best Friend is waiting for you. He’s waiting to turn that desert place into a garden. A garden of fruit, a garden of peace and holiness. A garden of real community and fellowship. Turn to the One who you claim to sit with daily, you know why? Because He Himself is the One who dwells in community. Love cannot be love if He is alone. Enter into the Divine Eternal Dance and join the Triune God. He is whom you seek and deeply desire. Your soul is thirsty for union with it’s Lover. Please don’t believe the lie that you are incapable of loving others just because you are in isolation. Within you is the kingdom of heaven! You have the capacity to more than just love! It wasn’t out of your Heavenly Father’s loneliness that He created you for Himself but out of His Love. He who is Love is the One who dwells in community with the Son and the Spirit. Leave this emptiness to come to fullness, leave this isolation to come to abundance of Life.

O daughter of Jerusalem, turn your loneliness into solitude and you will dwell and dine together with the Holy Trinity. You will be seated at the royal table and partake of His Divinity while you feast and commune with the body of Christ, His Church and His bride. Once you enter into solitude you will experience a creative communion with your fellow beings. You must be willing to enter in order to be healed and become who you were meant to be.

Love,

Your future-self

“A union with Christ divinizes us while leaving our personality totally intact. It does not entail by any means the absorption of one’s personality but the full flowering of one’s own unique God-given personality by God’s grace.”

Anthony Coniaris

“Should you not fear me?” declares the Lord. “Should you not tremble in my presence?” (Jeremiah 5:22)

Approaching God in Fear

Too many of us continue to approach God solely as a buddy or as a friend. We high-five Him, joke with Him, call Him our homeboy and completely forget that He is the Lord God Almighty, the King of glory, and the Lion of Judah. While an intimate friendship with Him is to be desired, this should not take away from the fear and awe by which we approach Him. Abraham, whom the Bible called a friend of God (James 2:23), understood how to speak to Him. While he was pleading with the Lord to save Sodom he approached Him with humility and reverence:

“Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes” (Genesis 18:27)…Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more” (Genesis 18:32).

Bad things happen when we forget to give God the honor and glory due to Him:

For instance, when the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem in 2 Samuel a man named Uzzah was afraid it was going to fall off the cart it was being carried in so he “put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it” and in His anger, God struck him dead on the spot (2 Samuel 6:6-7).

In the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant was where God physically manifested Himself to the people of Israel between the two golden cherubim, and there was a certain way it was to be approached and carried (it definitely wasn’t supposed to be touched by Uzzah, even if he thought he was helping). God’s anger wasn’t aroused because he didn’t follow the rules – it was because of the lack of fear by which Uzzah touched the Ark.

Fearful Worship

In order to really worship God – to deeply, from the bottom of your heart really adore Him – you need to fear Him.

Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? (Revelation 15:4)

In my Orthodox Church, during the major parts of the liturgy, the word ‘fear’ is always used. Before we read the gospel, the deacon says, “Stand up in the fear of God and listen to the Holy Gospel.” This reminds the congregation that what we are about to read is the Living Word of God that has the power to transform lives. Also, right before the Holy Spirit descends on the bread and wine to mysteriously change them into the Body and Blood of Christ, the deacon chants, “Worship God in fear and trembling.” Whenever the word ‘fear’ is mentioned it is a reminder to wake up and really understand what is taking place around you.

The thing is… God wants to ‘wow’ us with all that He is. He doesn’t want our lives with Him to be routine or ordinary. He wants us to know the He is Holy, Just, Sovereign, Majestic, Powerful, AMAZING – not just in our heads, but in our hearts:

…these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men, therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder… (Isaiah 29:13-14).

We need to learn to worship God the way King David did:

But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy; in fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple (Psalm 5:7).

We need to ask Him to open our eyes to the greatness of who He is and all that He does so that we might be able to fearfully worship Him:

I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him. (Ecclesiastes 3:14)

We don’t worship a wimpy God – we worship THE LORD!

I can’t put it better than the following quote by Mike Yaconelli:

“I would like to suggest that the Church become a place of terror again; a place where God continually has to tell us, “Fear not”; a place where our relationship with God is not a simple belief or a doctrine or theology, it is God’s burning presence in our lives. I am suggesting that the tame God of relevance be replaced by the God whose very presence shatters our egos into dust, burns our sin into ashes, and strips us naked to reveal the real person within. The Church needs to become a gloriously dangerous place where nothing is safe in God’s presence except us.”

Fear Keeps Us From Sin

This shouldn’t be the primary focus of fearing God but there really is no way around this verse:

But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. (Luke 12:5)

Put another way: By the fear of the Lord one departs from evil. (Proverbs 16:6)

As Godly men, the fear of God should motivate us to continually seek and pursue Him with all of our hearts in order to be that branch that bears fruit:

Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. (John 15:2)

Let’s not forget that at the end of it all we will all have to approach His throne to give an account of everything we did in this life:

Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

The Maturation of Fear is Love

Fear is in the beginning: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7).

Love is in the end: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear… but he who fears has not been made perfect in love (1 John 4:18).

What takes place in the middle is really cool:

In Matthew 13, Jesus gives us “The Parable of the Hidden Treasure” and “The Parable of the Pearl of Great Price”

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (verses 44-46)

In these two stories the two men portrayed are not very business savvy (and one of them is even a merchant!) Why would they sell everything they have to obtain this one thing that they had found? Why not just sell enough of their stuff to buy it for a reasonable price? You can almost look at these parables and say these men were operating with the notion that what they were doing was urgent. It was critically important. It is very possible that they were afraid that someone else would find what they had found and beat them to buying it. They wanted it regardless of what they had to do or sell to get it.

God wants us to be afraid in this way: He wants us to be afraid of losing Him. He wants us to be like these two men in the sense that we’ll do anything in order to have Him – to have more and more of Him in our lives.

In the famous Psalm of repentance, King David pleads “Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit away from me” (Psalm 51:11).

No, God is not going to leave us or forsake us, but we need to stop treating our sin like it doesn’t matter; we need to stop approaching Him with apathy; we need to be afraid of hurting Him and bringing sorrow to His heart; we need to FEAR Him:

the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love. (Psalm 147:11)

“Our world is… longing to see people whose God is big and holy and frightening and gentle and tender… and ours; a God whose love frightens us into His strong and powerful arms where He longs to whisper those terrifying words, ‘I love you.'” (Mike Yaconelli)