One thing I’m trying to do in looking at my goals for 2010 is figuring out how I got here, and what I need to do to go where I want to be. This can be a painful process- particularly for prayer and weight loss. One of my biggest obstacles to prayer is fear.

This post isn’t about sharing the solutions I have found. It is about being honest and admitting to myself (and the world) that I have serious struggles in this area.

I am Afraid

I don’t like to admit that I fear anything. I like the idea of being bold and fearless. However, I have fears, lots of fears. Deep down, I know that when I am afraid, it is because I don’t trust God. Even though I intellectually acknowledge that what has brought me the most pain has also brought the greatest growth, I am afraid of getting hurt. Some of my fears (dogs and cars come to mind) have obvious physical reactions: I feel tense, my heart rate increases, and I have less than comfortable feelings in my stomach. However, when it comes to prayer, I have far worse reactions: prayerlessness, timidity, and distrust.

I am Afraid to Want.

The thought of wanting something scares me. I am encouraged that God opened Hannah’s womb in 1 Samuel 1- but terrified of verse 10 "She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly." Distress hurts. Whether or not the desire is met, the act of desiring can be painful.

It makes it hard for me to ask God to do anything when I’m afraid to want anything. It is easier for me to pray on behalf of others than for myself, but my fear of wanting things definitely has a negative impact on the fervency of my prayer for others. Sharing prayer requests is hard for me. It is hard enough admitting to myself that I want something, but sharing a desire with someone else makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. When I share something, it makes it more real to me, and I’m afraid to really want anything.

This fear is hard to recognize. I don’t sit around thinking to myself "Wanting things hurts. Don’t want anything so you won’t get hurt." Instead, I have just formed a habit of ignoring desires. When choosing a college major, it was easier to look at what I was good at than what I wanted to do. In the end, I ended up with a degree in computer engineering- even though I knew more than a year before I graduated that I had no interest in working with computers. It was easier to finish the degree than to find out what did interest me (especially since I planned on being a full-time mom rather than having a "career"). In prayer, it is easier for me to figure out what I "should" ask for and do so in a dutiful manner than to have a heartfelt desire for it and cry out to God.

I am Afraid to be Disappointed.

I’m guessing many people can identify this. Even if I do want something, I’m afraid that even if I ask for something, I won’t get it. Some people ask (in many contexts, not just prayer) "What’s the worst thing that could happen if you ask, rejection?" In my mind, rejection after sharing a desire is significantly worse than the default rejection of a silent desire. I read "You do not have, because you do not ask" in James 4:2, and I hear a whisper "but it would hurt more if I ask and have not anyway."

For example, I am afraid of asking that God would bless us with a child. While I do ask for that, fear makes it harder to ask. In my mind, infertility is hard enough. Remaining infertile after asking for God to open my womb is something I can’t handle on my own (which gets to another obstacle to prayer that, Lord willing, I will blog about sometime: pride/self sufficiency).

I am Most Afraid most my Petitions Will be Granted.

As much as I am afraid of disappointment, it is greatly overshadowed by my fear that God will answer my prayer and give me exactly what I asked for- and then I will wish He hadn’t. Unlike the first two prayers I mentioned, this has not been subtle at all. There is a story behind this fear:

When I was in elementary school, our pastor moved to another town and we got a new pastor. My family, like many families in the church, ended up changing from that church (A) to another church (B) in the same denomination (one that some of these same families (ours included) had left a handful of years earlier). I hated it. I hadn’t liked the new pastor at A as much as our previous pastor, but I didn’t want to leave. I wondered if the problems at B had been enough to leave earlier why we were going back. I felt like we were abandoning part of our family. It felt like what I can only imagine it must feel like to have parents get divorced. I did everything I could to stay connected with A- I made deals with my parents that if I achieved certain things (like running a race in a certain time), I could be rewarded with a visit to A. I would make myself throw up on Sunday mornings so that I could stay home and listen to Christian radio rather than going to B. In my anger, I hated the pastor at B. I would look for every flaw in his sermons. When I couldn’t find substantial error in his teaching, I mocked his accent or other things about his style. I seriously regret the way I reacted.

God used that time tremendously- my time in prayer and the Bible exploded. While I reacted in a lot of bad ways, at the same time I learned to depend on God in a way I would never have learned otherwise. God didn’t let me stay angry forever. He made me go from hatred of the pastor to appreciation. He made me go from resisting the change to learning to love church B. Eventually, I could see how much I had grown from the pain of switching churches. Then my freshman year of high school, the pastor at B announced he was going to move on. I wasn’t ready for that. I immediately pictured my family changing churches again (after all, it was already the longest stretch that I’d been at one church). I begged God not to take him away, not to let him leave yet. That spring, he said he had decided to stay. Things were happening at our church that he didn’t want to leave. I felt so relieved.

The following November, disaster struck. The church secretary filed a sexual harassment suit against the pastor and the church. For two months I was in denial, thinking it had to be a case of false accusation. Two months after the suit was revealed to the congregation, the denomination told us we would definitely be getting a new pastor. What actually happened, I have no idea; I never saw the pastor again.

God used this second painful time as much as the first, but it hurt so much. I blamed myself. I thought "if only I hadn’t asked for him to stay, none of this would have happened." In retrospect, if the suit had merit- exposing the sin then was better than further concealment of sin (and I imagine things would have worked out somewhat differently if the suit did not have merit).

Although I know that God can and does make painful things work for good (Romans 8:28), I’m still afraid. Unlike whispers in my mind that make me fear rejection of my petitions, it is like someone is yelling "If God gives you what you want then you WILL regret it!"

To continue the example of infertility, part of me is afraid that I might become pregnant and then miscarry or have a stillborn child. I fear that worse yet, a child may live but reject Christ.

Conclusion

Here I might say "I know God loves me and wants what is best for me." Or perhaps "God is 100% for me; He is not my enemy." These things are true and good, but that’s not how I’m going to end. My fears are a serious matter. I don’t want to minimize that my fears are sinful. The prayerlessness I tolerate in my life because of my fears is inexcusable. I’m sorry this post doesn’t end on a happy note of "here’s how you too can overcome your fears"- maybe in another post I will talk about the steps I take to wage war against my fear. For now though, here are a few things other people have written with a bit more hope.

Molly Piper wrote an excellent post about fear and not blogging about pregnency. In it, she quotes a mentor telling her "Hell dances when God’s people are afraid." I can identify with so many of the things she said.

The first time we visited Bethlehem, Pastor John preached "The Beautiful Faith of Fearless Submission".