What's to Fear?

5am. Can’t sleep.  

Yesterday I got the call to be admitted to hospital today.

Things have not been improving as hoped for.

To be under observation for a few days. 

To be bombarded with a higher dosage of steroids.

And other stuff. Damage control. Fix the liver. Stop the spread. 

Driving back from the consultation, Colin asks ‘Are you scared?’

My immediate reaction, internally, was ‘Who, me? Scared?

My faith - my optimistic outlook - my ‘let’s do it’ personality. 

What’s to fear?’ 

Then later in the night, I ask the question again. 

‘What IS there to fear?’

So in the dark hours before the dawn, I get up and write my list.

Here it is. Raw and honest.

What do I fear, then? 

Dying?                  No. Without hesitation. My faith is sure.

Separation?         Yes. Fear of that awful gulf that happens when one is taken, the other left.

Things that go bump in the night? No.

But Uncertainty?  Yes. The not knowing what’s ahead, or for how long,  or what will be the final result.

Loss?                   Yes. Thats a big one. 

                                     Loss of control. 

                                     Loss of capacity. 

                                     Loss of opportunities

Hospital?          Now his is where it gets weird. 

                         Yes. I have to honest, I am a bit afraid. 

With the same curious illogic the goes with fear of the dentist, the very place that is there to provide healing, becomes associated in the mind, with things not going so well. The old rabbit hole again. One thing can lead to another. Something gets fixed, but something else goes wrong.  And no sooner are you out, then you’re called back in again. 

Afraid of Judgment?       No. Without hesitation. I see Christ's cross and I am not afraid.

Yet, still, there does remain with me a fear of things left undone, of having messed up, in simple things that I should have fixed before, and in deeper things. Things I wish I had put right, when there was a chance.  And beneath that emerges a deeper fear - a fear of seeing His Face. His ever-loving, all-forgiving, filled-with-compassion Face, as he examines my dismal track record, but then says, with pain, yes, but also with an eternal love "It’s Okay, Peter. It’s Sorted." And therein lies True Fear. Fear as it should really be. Positive Fear. Fear that finds its object in that which is truly to be feared. The all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present Transcendent One.

What the Book of Proverbs calls “The Fear of God”