There is a safety that comes from trusting in the Lord. A safety that is not easily shaken. Knowing that not only can He protect you, but knowing that He will protect you – there is safety there.
Despite having been in some dangerous situations, I have never feared for my personal safety when with people. I trust fully that God will protect me. I figure that if it is my time to go, I will go. If it is not my time, then nothing someone does to me will keep me from the plans and purpose God has for me. Even when I walked away from the Lord, I trusted Him with that belief.
Yet, I have learned that maybe I fear people on a different level and it is possibly more of a dangerous trap. I don’t fear in a physical sense, but an emotional one. I fear my emotional safety with people. I realized I might be with people, but I am absent emotionally. I don’t share of my emotions – good, bad, or ugly.
Emotional vulnerability was halted somewhere. I can share anything from my life completely void of emotion. I realized I might trust God to protect me physically and spiritually, but I didn’t trust Him to protect my heart and soul. That was a sobering reality. Somewhere in life I started developing walls of self-protection. I have been working to learn where it started. I want to understand the root cause and confront it. God has shown me several things, but I think it is just scratching the surface.
It is dangerous trap because it keeps me hidden from others. Physically being there people form an idea of who they think you are. The reality is they know very little because the true you is hidden.
It is also dangerous because the false perception others have led them to feel you have it all together. The smile you wear on your face is a masquerade. They aren’t able to see the inner struggle and the process God takes you through.
It is a dangerous trap because you aren’t being the you that God created you to be. When I build walls around my emotions, I eventually shut them off even from myself. When people ask “How do you feel?” the truth is I really don’t know. I’m getting better with this as God chips away at the walls, but I really struggle with knowing my own emotions.
It’s a dangerous trap because God takes us through things to be a witness to others. He helps us so that we can help others. It is not just about the physical journey, it is about how the journey changes your soul. God changes you from the inside out that means people needs to know the soul journey.
It’s a most dangerous trap because it blocks our trust in God. When I truly trust God, I trust Him with my whole being. I can trust Him to protect me if I am emotionally vulnerable, because He has a purpose in it. I may not fully trust the person I am sharing with, but I should be able to trust Him to keep me safe as I share emotionally.
For almost a year now, God has been working with me on trust. I can’t truly begin to trust people until I fully trust Him. This is one of those posts where I can’t wrap it up in a neat bow with the solution. I don’t have it yet. I don’t quite know what it will look like. I only know that there are different types of fear. I know that any fear of people is a dangerous trap.
This blog is part of a #Write31Days series on trust. 31 Days is an online writing challenge, where bloggers pick one topic and write a post on that topic every day.
Restoring Voice 