Of Fear and Desire

Today is day 1 of my transformation.

It started well, but I had to deal with two competing emotions this morning. One would lead me to worry about what I can't do or face, while the other is drive, motivation. If you read my last post, you would understand my desire, or motivation and drive, to transform myself. What I didn't write about were my fears, at least not at length. I am not talking about the 'good' fear that the Bible teaches us. Fear of the Lord. There is a whole other study on this kind of fear, maybe for another day. Also, there is another kind of desire that is an evil, or lustful desire. I am not talking about those things.

Proverbs 10:24-
"The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted."

Fear paralyzes, desire catalyzes. Fear envies, desire loves. Fear is negative, desire is positive. When I woke up this morning, my mind was dabbling in the fear area. Fear reminds us of our failures, and compels us to live in the 'safe' world. Fear sounds rational and tells us that desire is irresponsible. Fear told me this morning that I was a lazy fat kid. Working out would only make me tired and I would fail at it anyway. The old nature wanted me to conform to the wicked. The wicked has fear come upon him. His fears become self-fulfilling prophecy. What a contrast with the desire of the righteous...

The desire of the righteous. What is that? Because scripture says it will be granted. It is interesting to think about this: Some of you focus on the word "desire" in that phrase and think of a Genie in a lamp scenario. "Man, if I could just act righteous enough, I could get anything I want!!" But how would the scenario change if you focused on the word "righteous"? Consider this passage:

Psalm 37:3-6
"Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday." (emphasis mine)

Here we are told to trust in the Lord, do good and delight yourself in the Lord. The results? you shall dwell in the land, be fed, and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Think about it. When you delight in someone (men, when you pursued your wives; women, when you fell in love with your husbands), you desire to please them. In reality, in our marriages, when we seek first and only to please our spouse, it in turn brings great joy to us. When both husband and wife are seeking to please each other, its kinda hard for one not to be pleased! When we seek the joy first, though, without much regard to pleasing our spouse, the results are empty. What about God? When we are delighted in the Lord, we are focused on pleasing Him. As a perfect God, he is not selfish - he is a giver. He will take care of your righteous desires.

S0 what am I sayin? Fear is one of our biggest obstacles to success. When we fear God, however, and seek to please Him, our very desires will line up with His desires, which are 100% pure.

Today I began day 1 of Power 90, the precursor to P90X. I got my butt handed to me today. But I expected that. In 90 days, that is going to be a much different post!