Stir Fry Fajitas ------Fearing Things Other Than The Lord

The Food Stuffs: 

Prep:

Have a frying pan ready and a place to chop your veggies. If your chicken is not precooked, boil it until cooked through. Same with the rice. My measurements are for a meal for two. Other than that, this recipe is very simple and quick!  

Ingredients:

-1/2 Cup Chopped Bell Pepper (try other varieties of peppers add for more flavor!)

-1/2 Cup Chopped Broccoli

-1/2 Cup Chopped Snap Peas

-2 Chicken Breasts (small ones are fine,) cooked and chopped into bits

-2 Cups Cooked Rice (brown is better)

-1/2 Cup Soy Sauce

-1/8 Cup Taco Sauce (choose your own heat)

-1/8 Cup  Worcestershire Sauce 

-A pinch of Garlic

-A pinch of Taco Seasoning

-A couple of soft tortillas

-A little bit of shredded cheese

Cooking Instructions:

1.Combine the three sauces in a frying pan, turn heat to medium.

2. When the sauce is warm, add the dry spices (adjust sauces and seasonings to taste, of course!)

3. Add the chopped vegetables, stirring them into sauce until lightly coated. 

4. Toss in the chicken bits, stirring them in as well.

5. Heat the rice separately. 

Putting It All Together:

1. When all of the components of the meal feel warm to the touch, warm your soft tortilla shells slightly.

2. Place tortillas on plates, and pile on the rice.

3. Spoon the meat and veggie mixture onto the rice, adding sauce on to your liking.

Topping It Off:

Sprinkle some cheese on top of that mess! Fold up your tortilla and enjoy! 

Notes:

This meal does not have to be very hot! Just slightly warmed on the stove is fine (just be sure your chicken and rice are cooked through.) The variability of temperature and spiciness makes this a great summer time meal. 

Mmm.....

Thoughts on Fearing Things Other Than The Lord

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction." -Proverbs 1:7

I am skilled at fearing things. Fear comes very naturally to me. Yet fearing God is by no means easy for me- for one, because God is good. There is a lot out there that isn't good that I find myself fearful of. So fear often rules me. I find myself fearing things like failure and rejection. I also find myself fearing things like joy, hope, or...surrendering things to the Lord. These things are good, but I fear them too.

This probably marks the beginning of a sort of "series" on fear simply because the subject is one which I continually find myself being pointed toward and befuddled by. It seems the Lord is working in me to change some of my notions about fear. 

As I begin considering the things that I fear that are "other" than the Lord, I find myself trying to name what fear actually is. I've heard people say that the Bible doesn't actually mean "fear the Lord." The Bible just means "to respect" Him. Though I'm no Bible scholar, I don't buy that. To respect Him as above and beyond myself is certainly a component of my fear of the Lord...but that just isn't the whole deal. We have to be on guard against over-simplifying.

The dictionary definition of fear is all about the condition or state or being afraid...for reasons like real or perceived threats. In Hebrew, the common word for fear relates to having reverence for, being in terror of, not exceeding, and to consider as religion (taken from an online concordance on Biblos.com.)

In my personal experience...these make sense. When I fear something, I am:

1. Conditioned by being afraid of the threat of whatever it is that I fear. 

2. Reverent of what I fear. I treat "it" as special, beyond me, and independent of all else.

3. Terrified. How terrified I feel of my fears -they strike words, power, and much else out of me! 

4. Careful not to exceed my fears. I love this point. When I fear something, I don't push the boundaries of "it," I don't go far from "it."

5. Seeing what I fear as what I follow, obey, and live in relation to. "It" becomes my religion, my self-definition.

Maybe it isn't pretty...but these are indeed things I should "be" of the Lord. I should be afraid of the threat of God. What is the threat? Being separated from Him. The reality that I was born a sinner, and, apart from Jesus Christ, I am dust and will never be anything more. I will meet my end, it will be unimaginably awful, and I will deserve it. That is threatening, that is scary. And the God of the universe allows it to be that way -dare I say- created this world, these people, myself...knowing this. That is scary. And it should be. I need to recognize who I am in the face of this threat. Praise the Lord that I can stand before the threat and point to Jesus Christ as my savior.

I should be reverent of the Lord. He is beyond me, and beyond all things. The Lord is sovereign and perfect and that should inspire in me a reverence for His "otherness." When I encounter the Lord I should be terrified. I should be stricken, at a loss for words, and recognizing my own powerlessness. 

And then, the point I love -before the Lord, my fear should cause me to not exceed God. To not *try* to exceed God. If my life is lived fearing the Lord, I should not push the boundaries of following Him. I should not seek to go away from the Lord or to surpass or overcome the Lord. I should be within his grip. He should be my religion. The Lord should be the determinant of my lifestyle, the one I obey and follow, and the one that I live entirely in relationship with. Jesus Christ should be my guide and what I am grounded in. 

Fearing the Lord is appropriate in my understanding. Fitting, necessary, even healthy. Proverbs says that fearing the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. 1 Corinthians speaks of a different sort of knowledge, of the wisdom of the world -and it is foolishness. It is worldly wisdom that says that God cannot be both feared and loved. Or feared and followed. Or fear-worthy and good. But He is. 

For me to claim that I have mastered this notion and appropriately fear, or understand what it is to fear the Lord, would be ridiculous. But, in light of this notion of fear, I recognize that many things besides the Lord cause me to fear. 

Yet what else is worthy of such fear? And what does it mean for the soul to fear something other than the Lord? To fear the Lord, as a sum of these definitions I have explored, is to submit to Him as my master and king. 

Nothing else is worthy of such regard. Anything else that I fear is put in a position over me which does not honor Jesus Christ. A wise and kind professor pointed this out to me once in the gentle but conclusive way that people who have loved the Lord for a long time do.

I had created an independent study exploring a big question. My goal was to figure out how Christians, myself included, could possibly do good in the world apart from simply sharing the Gospel. Every turn in the search presented a new problem. And my professor pointed out that every aspect of the questions and the issues I encountered related to fear. Those who seek and serve the Lord ultimately glorify Him because they fear Him and follow Him. Fearing making mistakes, looking bad to the world, not completing a "mission," or anything else just dethrones the true king. 

That was a sufficient answer for me. Because it was truth. Yet here I am, still afraid. And...fearful of a lot of different things. I'll probably be exploring these fears and what they stifle in my soul soon.