The world will try to convince you to close your heart – that you should always protect yourself, and avoid pain and emotion and learning and growing. One of our great duties in this life, then, is to approach it with an open heart. Though we know struggle is coming, we must receive it with open eyes and open hearts, and work toward transcendence.
Think of your deepest pain or fear. Those are the places we tend to think God cannot go, for if we let him go there, we would be healed. God is most fully real and himself in the worst parts of our lives, but letting go at the point when you feel the most fear and pain is difficult. Oddly enough, we prefer to hold onto our fear and pain because they keep us in control. Trusting at those points is like letting go when the source of your pain and fear is just before you; you tend to tighten your grip to protect yourself. This makes sense, but just like many profound truths, the solution is the opposite and counterintuitive. You must let go at that very point when you feel most threatened. That is when your healing will become sublime and you will reach new heights. That is also when the same old fear and pain will not keep weighing you down. Worth it!
The Presence is available to you all the time – to come in and quiet your fears. The problem is we are convinced that we have to do something special – be somewhere special, say something special, “do the right thing” – in order to get it. The thing about the Gift is that it is just that – a Gift. This is also the beauty of the Gospel: as soon as you want it, you can have it. It might take some practicing of the Presence, but what is more important and life-giving than that?
Notice what God doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, “there is nothing to be afraid of.” Rather, he says “Do not be afraid.” It seems implied that there are things which will cause us fear. Jesus even asserts that, “In this world, you will have trouble.” But then he also says, “Take heart! I have overcome the world.”