I Have Called You By Name


Dear People of God: I have been avoiding the subject but today God has called me to face it. Fear. I am very good at quoting Scripture and citing that over 125 times some form of "be not afraid" appears in the Bible. I am not as good at letting that idea soak into my bones. 
I don't want to say anything trite. I don't want to say anything hypocritical. 
So like Jacob wrestling with the Angel in the night, I came face to face with fear in my dreams, in my restlessness, and in my insomnia last night. At some point I remember a feeling of surrendering, I thought it was to fear, but upon waking I realize it was to Love. The arms of God held me and my fear melted.
Fear is not gone; it is just not controlling. And while it may be in the wrestling ring corner waiting for the next round, I am waiting in God's corner with Christ anointing my bruised not broken soul. 
I also awoke to this Scripture and Brueggemann's commentary on it:
But now thus says the Lord, 
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; 
I have called you by name, you are mine. Isaiah 43:1

The meditation goes on to say "Being unafraid is an odd vocation; but it is the vocation of all those who have been baptized." To which I add It has become the vocation of our global community in the time of coronovirus, "the community of known, named, and unafraid people." or at least people trying to find that state of unafraidness!
They and we are the people who have been redeemed (note the tense) they and we are the people in whom the seed of love has been implanted. They and we contain the power of God to "turn the world upside down" (Acts 17:6) or as the commentator notes "right side up"!
As the prophet says Do not fear! I have called you by name; you are mine! 
Let us pray: In a world of fear and anxiety, you empower us to live lives of wholeness, lives that make the world whole and turn it right side up. Embolden us as those who know that they are called by your name. Amen

Attribution to Walter Brueggemann in A Way Other Than Our Own

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