I’ve
taken to walking the streets at night. This is not because I have a death wish
or am making dumb, rash decisions; rather this is because they seem to be
nocturnal beings over here. It is common for them to go out with friends at
hours when only bats and other nocturnal creatures roam about, namely between
the hours of midnight and dawn, around 7 in the morning.
Last
night I made dinner with some new friends around midnight, which translated to
a walk home around 2:30 am. My new friends responded to my leaving saying,
“Aren’t you coming out with us? It’s early” That is when I debated in my head, do I want to walk home alone now, at 2:30 or
at 5:00 like I did a few nights ago, is there a difference? I chose the
former last night, laughing to myself at this cultural difference. As I was
walking home I was thinking about how I wasn’t fearful at all of walking alone
as a girl in the dark in a foreign city. I wonder if this fear or lack thereof
is a conditioned emotional response at times. Since being here I have maybe
done this a dozen times already. The first times my heart would beat faster,
filled with adrenaline my whole way home. Now it doesn’t. It doesn’t because I
feel that my body has grown accustomed to emulate the state of my mind, which
is at peace. You do what is necessary. In this situation, it is necessary that
I surrender these nightly walks to God, and live in the peace that my God
provides. If not fear and worry, not peace or joy, life or love, faith or hope
would reign in my mind.
I
wonder if this extends beyond just my becoming accustomed to Spain’s nocturnal
habits. Where else in my life is fear or worry something I am conditioned to or
that I feel habitually with the excuse “because I always have…” or “I’m
supposed to fear this….or be worried about this…” I am not a person who is very
fearful or worrisome of external causes, such as pain, people, death, heights,
or objects. Yet I’ve realized it is sometimes internal and abstract things I
fear-not being good enough, not doing enough, failing at loving people or being
a testimony of light for the world. Through this experience, this week God has
been teaching me that if I fear these things it takes away from fully living
into the abundant life He has come to bring (John 10.10). Rather if I fear God
alone, the only one who is sovereign and powerful, this opens up doors for the
fruits of Life to flourish. This is one of the ways that knowing Jesus sets us
apart. For some it may be having this realization of fearing God rather than
the world infiltrate through external fears, for me it is letting this truth
penetrate my internal ones. I’m practicing this new way of thinking. This has
brought a new perspective on the peace of the Lord that passes understanding.
God is so present with me, at all times, in all situations. Hallelujah. We
belong to and serve a very near God. Hallelujah.
Psalm
91
“He
who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the
Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in
whom I trust”…You will not fear the terror of the night, not the arrow that flies
by day, not the pestilence that stalks in the darkness not the plague that
destroys at midday…”
nor
the abstracts of my heart…
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