Tag: fear

Lent 2018 | Day #9: Fear

When fear cripples us it puts us in a position where we cannot hear God. Every true thing God wants to say gets blocked out by our fear.

Fear is one of the most common emotions in the human experience. The things people are afraid of are as widely varied as the number of people. Some people seem to show no fear at all. My mom, she is deathly afraid of frogs. I don’t know what happened when she was a little girl, but she hates them! She hates frogs so much she won’t even go to a great Mexican Restaurant in town because the name is the word frog in Spanish, and they have figurines of frogs as decorations. It is rather comical.

However, the reasons we fear are not as important as the effect fear has on us. We become paralyzed by it. Our ability to think becomes impaired, to the point we could actually be described as being irrational. This is what happens when fear takes over. When we are unable to use our fear the way it was intended, as a warning for possible danger, we can’t think straight.

When fear cripples us it puts us in a position where we cannot hear God. Every true thing God wants to say gets blocked out by our fear. This is why these words recorded by the Prophet Isaiah to God’s people are so comforting. Let’s look at them right now.

8But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; 9you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”; 10fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:8-10)

Verse 10 is such a wonderful reminder of God’s goodness. Just like he said to Israel, God says to us, “Fear not!” Are there things in the world that can be very scary? Yes, there are. But, those things, no matter how bad cannot control the purpose God has for us nor can alter our destiny.

What makes this verse even more comforting is the reason why we do not have to fear. God says we have no need to fear because he is with us. He tells us that his closeness sustains us and keeps us from being dismayed because he is not merely “a” god. No! God is “the” only God. And what’s more, he desires to be “my” God.

There are some very powerful benefits to have a living relationship with God. The prophet records it like this: “[God] will strengthen you, [God] will help you, [God] will uphold you by [his] righteous right hand.” Amen and amen to this great promise.

As we draw this first full week of Lent to a close, I want to remind you that our God is with us and that he has given us so many reasons to not fear.

Faith is NOT Blind

One of the most difficult things in the Christian faith is learning how to bring out entire lives into conformity with God’s commands and purposes. I think the reason I struggle with this is because I cannot see into the future. If I could see how the decisions I was going to make right now were going to impact future events I would have greater confidence in what I was doing.

This may be wishful thinking. It may even be naive to think that we could have this kind of foresight. I do not have a problem with that. What I have learned is that I do not have to see into the future to have a good idea of how a present decision with impact future events.

For better or for worse, people and the circumstances that we find ourselves in do not change all that much. Sure, there are issues of language and culture but, people still have the same basic needs and desires. We all desire to be loved and accepted. We all have fears and anxieties. We all have a longing to live a life of meaning and purpose. I do not believe that people wake up every morning hoping to live a meaningless existence. This kind of hopelessness and ambiguity is something we learn because of what we choose and, to a greater degree, what we go through in life.

We cannot deny that the choices of others affect us. They may even cause us to stumble. I do not ever want to minimize this reality. What I have come to believe is that when we do not have something sure, constant, and immovable in our lives this tendency toward existential angst goes unchecked.

As a believer in Jesus, my faith provides me with a mooring to hope that, even when I fight against it, reminds me that there is someone who is calling me back from the brink. For me, hope is not just an idea. Hope is incarnated in the person of Jesus. He is my hope. He is the one who calls me back to the light when the world grows dark.

Faith in Jesus is not easy. Not because it is difficult to understand what is being asked of us. This life is difficult because we see what is being asked and we have to decide if we are genuinely willing to surrender our desires to those of God. Are we willing to trust that the steps God is calling and leading us to take are safe and sure?

In the end, there is only one way of finding out. That way is to take the first step. We have to begin to walk by faith and in faith before we will ever know. Faith is not blind. It is bold. It looks at what is in front of it and decides to proceed.

Faith is NOT blind. But it is not careless either. It must be thoughtful and measured and, most importantly, courageous.

Your Fears are a sign of God’s Grace

There are many people who love being scared. They go on rollercoaster rides, to haunted houses, through Halloween mazes, and even watch scary movies to get the “rush.” I am not one of those people. I tend to be rather skittish when I know that something is about to happen. I just want it to be over. This makes me a bad movie partner. I talk to the characters on the screen and tend to laugh at things most people don’t see as funny. Over the years my wife as learned to just deal with my movie-watching antics. This may also be a big reason we watch more movies at home than at the theater.

This past week, as our LifeGroup meeting was closing one of our members made the comment that when they start praying for God to be at work in their lives, almost immediately, they have fears pop up in their minds. As this member shared and we listened, a thought came to my mind. It was something I had thought about before but had never verbalized in quite the same way I did in our meeting. I told my LifeGroup, “Our fears are evidence of God’s grace in our lives because they reveal to us where the battle will be joined.” If we know where the battle will be fought it only makes sense to strengthen our defenses in that area.

We are created to experience fear. It is a truly remarkable quality to the human experience. It is a built in defense mechanism. However, what many of us do not always see is that our fears are warnings we are supposed to take notice of. We are overcome my our fears rather than learning what is causing them so we can stop being afraid.

I have started saying that fear is faith in the wrong thing. When we are fearful we have replaced the comforting truth of God’s word and God’s character and God’s promises with something that is unable to sustain us. That is why we fear. We become afraid when we realized that what we wanted to hold us up cannot support what we are entrusting to it–our lives.

I know that there are some things we fear that are not life altering, i.e., my own fear of heights and spiders. I can’t explain or control these fears, but they do affect how I live my life in some way. So, what do we do when we have a fear of greater import? How do we respond when we are afraid that we have failed God in some way? What do we do to overcome our anxiety of falling back an undesired habit or pattern? How do we overcome the feeling that God will not be able to do something we are asking his help in doing?

These are genuine issues we all face. I am sure we could all come up with a list of fears we have as it relates to our faith journey. The question we must ask ourselves is how can we trust God to help when we feel unworthy?

The place I go for encouragement and a reminder is 1 Corinthians 10:13:

13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

God provides a way of escape for every temptation we face in life. The choice we have to make is to take it. It is already there. Paul seems to indicate that the way of escape is apparent because it is tied to the temptation itself. When we are being tempted, the solution is right in front of us. We know what it is because we are the ones being tempted.

Our fear in whatever situation we find ourselves is the signpost pointing to the way out. We have to trust it and follow it. There are many reasons we fall prey to fear. But, the most prominent of them all is that we already know what we must do and many times we choose not to choose the path to freedom. If we want to overcome our fears we ought to put our faith in the right thing (i.e., God) and see our fear as a grace of God pointing me to the way of escape he has provided.

Lent Day #3 | Change is not the Problem

When people talk about change, and how bad it is, what they are really saying is that the thought of losing control, of having to depend on others for security is too nerve-racking to allow.

malachi-3-6

These words serve as the foundation for our confidence in God. The reason that we can trust in God is due to his unchanging and unchangeable nature. God is the very definition of consistency. Therefore, whatever God has said will happen could be talked about in the past tense because it is as good as done. There is no reason to doubt this attribute of God’s being.
Continue reading “Lent Day #3 | Change is not the Problem”

The Gospel and Black Cats

When we stand in the light, all darkness disappears. That is the wonder and beauty of light.

This past weekend I saw something with my own eyes that I would not have believed it had not happened right in front of me! My family and I were going to the mall here in Columbus and getting some amazingly, delicious Auntie Anne’s pretzels. (They are my favorite! But, I digress.) We had gotten our snack and were headed over to the playground to lets the girls run around and burn some energy.

So we arrive at the stop sign and I see this small sedan pass right in front of us and come to an abrupt and complete stop. I was wondering what was going on, and that is when I saw it. A black cat ran out from the grass and darted across the road, right in front of the car. From were I was I could see the driver and she had this look of panic on her face. What stunned me was what happened next.

The driver put the car in reverse and backed up very quickly, made a right turn and passed us. I looked over at my wife and said, “Did I just see that happen?!” It was one of the most interesting things I have ever seen. As I have thought about it over the last several days, I have come to realize that superstition can be a powerful reality in the lives of people. But, what does the Gospel offer to us as believers when we face something like this?

First, the initial thought that I had was, “How sad.” This woman almost caused an accident because she was motivated by fear. A fear based on a lie. That cat crossing in front of her car was not a bad omen. It was just a cat crossing the road. The apostle Paul gives Timothy a challenge as it relates to these kinds of occurrences.

7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. — 1 Timothy 4:7-8

Second, the Gospel is truth and it takes away any reason for entertaining “irreverent, silly myths.” When we stand in the light, all darkness disappears. That is the wonder and beauty of light. The reality of God’s love and of Jesus’ example and sacrifice means we no longer have to fear crossing cats, walking under ladders, spilling salt, breaking a mirror, opening an umbrella indoors or any other superstition this world has.

The Gospel represents freedom. The kind of freedom the driver of the car did not have.

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