Jeremiah,
Chapter 1, verse 8:
8 Be not afraid
at their presence: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.
Yes we live in dangerous times but our Lord is with us; whom shall we fear.
Jeremiah in this chapter received the call of God and
he was afraid. Jeremiah as a young man
felt inadequate to do the call of God.
Moses on the other hand was a much older man but like Jeremiah when he
received the call of God he felt inadequate.
When Peter received the call from our Lord Jesus he felt insignificant
and cried out, “Leave me Lord. I am a
sinful man.” (Luke 5:8b). The lesson here is that when we are called it
will be scary. Christ asks us to not be
afraid. The perfect example of what our
attitude to the call should be was the attitude of Mary at the annunciation
when God called her to be the mother of Christ.
Mary’s fiat was "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be
done to me according to your word." (Luke 1: 38).
An interesting thing in this verse, is the use of
the word presence. Worldly people
are masters of presence or the projection of power. When called, do not fear powerful people for
is not God greater than a world of powerful people? Give
it to God, let him take control; for our Lord will empower us and deliver us to
accomplish his word just like he did Jeremiah and all the Saints. We for our part must be, ready for change,
for God will prepare us for the challenges of our calling. We must be open to the promptings of our Lord
and be willing to give up any of our own facades of presence or false images of
power we may have developed over time.
We may have over time, found ourselves projecting a
presence, which is actually just an overreaction to our fears and
self-doubts. Let us follow the advice of
Father J. Brian Bransfield and realize: To
find the depths of our identity we must pass through our fears.[1]
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