THE WAVES OF FEAR
John 6:16-21 When evening came, his disciples went down to
the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake… When they had
rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat,
walking on the water; and they were terrified. But he said to them, "It is
I; don't be afraid." Then they were willing to
take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they
were heading.
Self-hatred
is…the dominant malaise crippling Christian people and stifling their growth in
the Holy Spirit….The disparity between our ideal and real self, the grim
specter of past infidelities, the awareness that I’m not living what I believe,
that I am not all that I ought to be, that I am not measuring up to others’
expectations of demeanor and lifestyle, the relentless pressure of conformity,
the midlife oppression of what I had hoped to become and what I have actually
become….transform an expectant pilgrim people into a dispirited traveling
troupe of … wiped-out Willie Lomans.
In the struggle with self-hatred, we obviously do not
like what we see. It is uncomfortable, if not intolerable, to confront our true
selves, and so… we either flee our own reality or manufacture a false self
which is mostly admirable…and superficially happy. Defense mechanisms become
useful allies here… Those of us who have played this game wear a thousand masks
to disguise the face of fear.
Henry
Nouwen writes: “I wonder if fear is not our main obstacle to prayer. When we
enter into the presence of God and start to sense the huge reservoir of fear in
us, we want to run away into the many distractions which our busy world offers
so abundantly.”
To pray is to ‘return to ourselves’,
where God dwells, and accept ownership of our sinfulness, poverty and
powerlessness. Only when the prodigal son returned to himself and took
inventory of his desperate plight did he begin the journey home to his father.