Hinds' Feet on High Places

Hello, my name is Much-Afraid, and I live with my family - the Fearings - in the Valley of Humiliation.

I'm a cripple; my mouth is twisted - so you could imagine how my speech is - and my feet are crooked ... just to give you an idea.

I'd been working for The Chief Shepherd and I yearned (and still yearn) to please Him in everyway. To my relatives dismay, I met with him every morning at dawn and each evening when the sun goes down, initially. These meetings helped me claw through my life in the Valley.

I'd never left the Valley before, though... hmm. My relatives, well, they simply terrified me... and, well, let's just say that instead of learning to resist their threats on if I ever left, I would just cower to them. Oi oi oi.

I was miserably content... living day for day - my food for life being those short meetings... until the crap hit the fan - my aunt told of my being promised to my cousin - Craven Fear - for marriage soon.

WTH?! Nuh-uh! No way!!

So I ran to the meeting point of The Shepherd... and we began to talk. He asked so many questions! Then, He asked if I reeeeeally wanted change... complete change. Man, at that point, I was willing to change my entire being and existence. I wanted OUT of the Valley.

"Yes"

Of course, though, my Fearing ways came into play...

"...but..."

No buts with this Guy! He posed a solution to everything... He promised even a name change for me if I chose to continue onto the path He was about to show me.

Then He asked a more pressing question:

"Has love been planted in your heart, Much-Afraid?"

Before jumping onto it... I remembered! Ouch! When you love, you give the person you love the power to hurt and pain you in a way no one else can...

And of course, with this new cower, my Shepherd - with a warm smile - made a simple agreeing remark:

To love does mean to put yourself into the power of the loved one and to become very vulnerable to pain... the key is your response to that pain.

Seeing my still Fearing face, he smiled and assured:

Perfect love casts out fear.

And with that, an overwhelming calm came over me, and fear subsided...

He then took His scarred hands and continued into planting that thorny, painful seed of Love into my heart...


Why the heart? Why not the brain?

Well, during my life in the Valley, I relied more on my reasoning than on my trust in the Chief Himself. What is the most prevalent of all the strongholds in the Valley? Deceit. Yes, Deceit, himself. Deceit's famous and most effective weapon is Rationalization. The brain uses the rationalization of the "if...then" (if I do this, then this would be the outcome... therefore I choose to... ) clause to analyse possible outcomes before deciding whether or not to obey the path shown.

Apparently, the transformation I yeared for on this journey on which I was about to embark would involve a huge change from reliance on the reasoning of the brain to the walking in the trust-filled loving obedience of the heart.

Hence the reason for the using of the heart, and not the head.

"Your loving trust, and not your reasoning, is the way to the High Places."

Note: It starts with the heart, goes onto emotion, and then to the mind.





*to be cont'd... ideas based on the book - Hinds' Feet on High Places*