Fears

I went to another Hearts 4 Home study last night and the topic was on our fears. There were no notes passed out. Instead, the discussion was taken out from the book of Job.

The class started off with us listing out our worse fears:
- DearHubby is often sick and I fear him dying at a young age
- Turning my back for a second then turning around and seeing DearDaughter badly injured, missing, or dead
- Losing another baby through a miscarriage
- Being spontaneously asked to lead a Bible study

The facilitator then recalled a study she did on Job and how the study categorized our fears into 3 levels:
- So What? troubles: small, trivial, everyday troubles
- So How? troubles: difficult trials with options (ie unemployment, minor health problems, financial achievements...)
- So Who? troubles: no option or way out, reaching the end of self, asking "who is going to get me through?"

The one comment that was made about Job that struck me was how God was the one who mentioned Job to Satan and even "challenged" Satan to make Job waver. It just really opened my eyes wider to the fact that God is truly in control of EVERYTHING because He KNOWS everything, the good circumstances and the bad circumstances. But what really mattered to God were not the outward things about Job, because all those things were stripped from him, but what really mattered to God was his heart attitude on the inside.

The next part of the class was a time to share.
Q1. Who has come to that So Who? point?
Q2. If all your worse fears happened all on one day, you would have no choice but to just truly depend and rely and trust in God. Therefore, how would you live your life differently today knowing that you can truly depend and rely and trust in God? How would your energies shift from trying to prevent your worse fears?

We all didn't have the opportunity to share. Off the top of my head, this is how I would have answered:
A1. The first 2 So Who? moments I can think of:
- The time I lost my first baby through a miscarriage. I felt so many ranges of emotions and the only direction I could target those emotions towards was God.
- The time DearHubby and I flew down to Texas for his double knee surgery and we took DearDaughter along and I was struggling with major back pains. The time was so physically demanding that I literally ran out of my own strength and God purposely allowed that to happen so that I could run to Him.
A2. The irony of Q2 is that I don't try to prevent my worse fears. This question made me realize that I am often blind-sighted by my So What? fears or troubles. I spend most of my energy just getting through each day and getting through each little battle. However, I guess the lesson is the same...Is everything we're doing out of the purpose of glorifying God or are we so blind-sighted by our troubles that we lose sight of our greater purpose? What does getting through the day with the mindset of glorifying God look like?