Trembling with fear

As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.”  Act 24:25


I recently heard a lecture that included this verse.  They mentioned the fear Felix felt - the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  That this is often accompanied by tremblings, when we are at a point of resisting the Holy Spirit's presence.  


I felt this way.  I remember it distinctly the first time.  I was 15 at church camp.  That summer I had fallen into a not so good crowd that included a PK.  I remember there was an alter call to repent of our sins and receive Jesus if we had not.  There was only a handful a kids that did not go forward, I'm sad to say, I was one of them.


The Holy Spirit had a hold of me and I was trembling, near tears.  This was near the end of the week.  The time had past just going through the lessons and waiting until we had a free time to have "real" fun.  

I knew the trembling, it had visited me before when my blood sugar was low.  That's what I blamed the trembling on now, even though deep down I knew it wasn't the reason.  One of our leaders gave me some food (candy), since I declared that would make me better.


I can see it was at that moment that I gave myself up to the world.  It would take nearly 15 more years to come back under God's protection.  Those trembling didn't go away.  I developed very unhealthy relationships to many things.  Food - for surely it would fix my hypoglycemia. Helping others - for surely it will validate who I am, to show me I'm worth something.  Control - I often lost control, but strove to have for surely it would make me happy.  All of this and more just left me empty, alone, overweight, anxious (for I couldn't control anything) and an emotional wreck. 

Those tremblings, the fear is a result of not wanting to die to self and live for Jesus.  I haven't felt that in a long time for I'm a little quicker to obey the Holy Spirit (although not perfect yet).  

I couldn't believe this moment flashed back to me.  I spent several minutes going over it (good thing I could hit pause on the lecture).  I plan to meditate more on this pinpoint that God brought back into my head.  One thing I know is that those 15 years are years now covered by Jesus, they are no more, for that I'm eternally grateful.