I Am A Child of God

If anyone is paying attention, obviously I have not been posting for a while. But as I'm coming up on my 3 year cancerversary, there's a lot on my mind and I remembered that I have a place to get these thoughts out :)

I really love worship music. A lot of songs are straight out of the bible, so it's like an easy way to remember God's love and promises. If you grew up in church, maybe you memorized scriptures in Sunday School, and maybe you still memorize them. Of course I think it's a great thing to hide God's word in our hearts, but sometimes I get bogged down in trying to remember a verse word for word, when really it's the meaning behind the verse that matters. The best example of this is Philippians 4:6-7. This is one of my favorites, but for the life of me, I can never remember it word for word. But I don't really have to, because I can remember the meaning behind it: Don't worry about anything, but instead pray to God with a thankful heart and God will give you a peace that passes all understanding.

Anyway, back to my point for today. I am really thankful for my church for many many reasons, but one of the reasons is learning new worship songs. (My last post was actually about another song I learned there). A new favorite is No Longer Slaves. The chorus goes, "I'm no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God", and sometimes I literally just repeat that phrase over and over again to myself, hoping that I will actually live it out. Today I have seen several different scriptures and devotions related to fear (on Facebook of all things, so social media actually does have a positive side to it, depending on who you friend/follow!), and I feel like God is trying to tell me something. I think most of us live in fear to some degree, myself included. After all, there are so many things out there to fear: financial failure, health problems, losing those we love, not being good enough, terrorism, running into an ex when we look awful, divorce, having or not having children, and the list goes on and on, big and small, petty and serious, there is so much to fear. 

But we don't have to be slaves to fear if we are children of God. It doesn't mean the fear won't be there, it just means we aren't slaves to it. We don't let it run our lives, we don't make decisions out of fear. We look it in the face and tell our fears how big our God is and we look to Him to lead and guide us. 

I don't know what it's called when a song has something different at the end that's not another verse or the chorus, according to Google it may be a bridge or a coda, but I'm going to hope you know what I mean. A lot of worship songs do this, and at the end of No Longer Slaves, there's a bridge/coda/whatever that goes, "You split the sea so I could walk right through it, my fears are drowned in perfect love; You rescued me and I will stand and sing, I am a child of God". I was listening to this song for maybe the 100th or so time the other night, when I really thought about those words. Maybe God doesn't literally split seas these days, so we can walk through on dry ground. But how many times has He metaphorically split the sea for us? Removed obstacles just when we need it, and allowed us to walk right through a tough situation? How many times have we been facing something we know we can't handle, and come through the other side stronger than ever? God still works miracles in 2015, just like He did for Moses. He still splits the sea so we can walk right through it, and if we give our fears to Him, He will drown them in perfect love. 

We truly are no longer slaves to fear if we will put our faith and trust in Him.