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February 8 - August 22, 2017
Fear is natural to us. We don’t have to learn it. We experience fear and anxiety even before there is any logical reason for them.
Both oppression and freedom can incite fear.
Freedom resolves the fear and anxiety associated with persecution and oppression, but it increases the fear of personal failure, which is one reason Soren Kierkegaard said that anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. With freedom come more choices, which mean more opportunities to get it wrong. Freedom or oppression—pick your poison. They both contribute to our fears and anxieties.
What was once a small family of worries quietly conducts an aggressive breeding program to become a teeming community of palpable fears and private anxieties. The code by which fear and anxiety live is primal: multiply. As we possess more things, care about more people, accumulate more bad experiences, and watch Fear Factor and the evening news, it is as if we absorb fear.
To deeply understand fear we must also look at ourselves and the way we interpret our situations. Those scary objects can reveal what we cherish. They point out our insatiable quest for control, our sense of aloneness.
Rather than minimize your fears, find more of them. Expose them to the light of day because the more you find, the more blessed you will be when you hear words of peace and comfort.
Any time you love or want something deeply, you will notice fear and anxieties because you might not get them.
Any time you can’t control the fate of those things you want or love, you will notice fears and anxieties because you might lose them.
Control and certainty are myths.
If you listen a little more closely, you will probably detect the theme of control. Stress is saying that life is teetering on the brink, right at the farthest reaches of your ability to maintain some control.
Stress can also signify that there is something on your to-do list that will be inspected by others.
Anxiety and fear prefer to stay on the surface rather than linger to consider something more deeply.
Blaise Pascal was one of the first to suggest that personal character can be assessed by how people handled rest and solitude. Do you avoid quiet? When you are alone, is either the iPod or TV always on? It should make you wonder: What am I avoiding? What is it about quiet places that is so scary?
Outside the covers is a world that is out of control with the potential for failure, rejection, and endless surprises we can’t even imagine, so depression opts for paralysis.
With no permission to discuss fears, men opt for anger.
Fear and anger can be the same words spoken with a different attitude.
One useful life skill is to know when to listen to our feelings and when to ignore them. As a general rule, the first step is to listen. There is a logic— a language—to fear and anxiety, just as there is to most emotions. Anger says, “You are wrong.” Embarrassment or shame says, “I am wrong.” Fear says, “I am in danger,” but it also says much more.
Danger points at the threatening world around us. Vulnerability points to ourselves.
Behind this desire for control is the gnawing awareness that we are merely human.
given a choice, we would prefer to be God. Without that option we dabble in trusting him.
Here is where fear is a door to spiritual reality. It suggests that authentic humanness was never intended to be autonomous and self-reliant. Humans are needy by design.
Will we abandon the myth of independence and seek God? Fear, control, God—they are all linked together. Since independence only works during the really good times, the obvious answer would be to seek God.
The problem is that God, the one in control, does not seem to exert much control. Trust him or ...
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Another way of expressing our personal vulnerability is through our experience of need. There is a close connection between what we fear and what we think we need. If we need comfort, we will fear physical pain. If we need approval from others, we will fear being criticized. If we need love, we will fear rejection. If we need admiration for our attractiveness, we will fear getting fat.
Two prominent categories of fear are those fears related to money and people. Their power to provoke fear is directly related to how much we need them. If we need what people can give us, they are in control and we will fear them. If we need what money can give us, we will notice rising insecurities whenever we do the bills.
Fear, control, God, anger, and need—they are all part of the same cluster.
Fear links with danger. Danger links with God, being vulnerable, being out-of-control, and need. Need, then, links to other experiences. When we need money, we are saying that money is especially valuable to us, and anything especially valuable is something we love.
Among those who follow Christ, we would expect death to hold no fear. This is true for some, but for many the fear of death still has its talons in us. We know that there is no condemnation as we put our trust in Jesus Christ, but theory is easier than practice. Heaven holds many mysteries and some of us don’t like surprises. There are times when we wonder if it is all too good to be true. We wonder what God will really say to us when we first see him face to face.
When you are actually in the battle you aren’t thinking about fear. The hard part is the night before. Your anxiety level rises when you hear the drumbeat of the opposing army getting closer and closer and all you can do is wait. Anxiety about the future event is usually worse than the event itself.
Worriers are visionaries minus the optimism. An experienced worrier can go for days leapfrogging from past to future and back again, never landing in the present.
As worry veers out of control, cool heads try to help. First, they state the obvious: Worry doesn’t help. Second, they add that worry has more in common with astrology than it does careful weather forecasts. Then, if nothing else works, helpers try to assuage the worrier by making the environment more secure, if possible.
When you listen to worry and witness its stubborn grasp, you find something that is most assuredly you. You have your reasons for worrying. You have purposes in your anxieties.
One message is obvious: If I imagine the worst, I will be more prepared for it. Worry is looking for control. It is still irrational because worry will not prepare us for anything, but at least it has its reasons.
reinforces his or her own worry, the motives may be darker. Human beings are naturally self-oriented. Some people are unusually altruistic, but we can easily find a selfish bent to our lives. If that is true, it is likely that even our worry reflects some self-centeredness: Worry puts the focus on me.
The plan? Here it is so far. Take a hard look at yourself instead of your circumstances when worry is blaring. Ask yourself what you are trusting in. Consider your poor track record for predictions, yet recognize that all these steps, while they may give some hope, still don’t push back the boundaries of fear and worry. Reason alone can’t do it. Face the reality that we have to go outside ourselves for an answer and seek the God who is in control.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid (John 14:27).
God never says anything just to get you off his back. The sheer number of times he speaks to your fears says that he cares much more than you know. He is not so busy that he attends only to macro-level concerns. Instead, he is close and speaks to the details of your troubles.
Do your troubles seem trivial, at least when compared to the dangers other people face? He knows you and has compassion. He does not compare your worries to those of others, decide which ones get priority, and then give everyone a number based on need. The way he repeats himself suggests that he understands how intractable fears and anxieties can be. He knows that a simple word will not banish our fears. He knows that our worries aren’t patiently waiting for permission to leave.
Remember, “Do not be afraid” are the words of the one who can match speech with action. He is the sovereign King who really is in control. The efficacy of the words is directly related to the authority, power, and love of the one speaking them.
If my experience of fear says that there is danger and God himself says he is with me, my fear wins. Fear doesn’t trust easily. It tenaciously holds onto its self-protecting agenda. Think about it. When was the last time God’s comforting words made a difference to you?
when fear escalates, it wants relief and it wants it now. Fear is impatient. Of course, we are all impatient, and whenever we experience something uncomfortable we want to get rid of it as quickly as we can. Fear is no different.
one of the first steps in combating fear and worry is to slow down. “Be still” (Ps. 46:10) is another of God’s exhortations to fearful people. Quiet! is the way some have translated it, and you can understand why.
If our sense of well-being is at risk, we want someone who loves and affirms. Fear calls out for a person bigger than ourselves.
If you are jaded because you feel as though God has been unreliable, look at it this way: There are no other choices. Other people can’t quite be trusted, and we are not in control. That limits the field to God himself. Not gods, only God.
Don’t forget, fear’s interpretations are not always to be trusted. You might feel abandoned so you believe you are abandoned. But you don’t know the entire story.
When Jesus spoke about God as our Father, we can refer back to the entire Old Testament record of his fatherly care.
Now consider that the Father is also the King. “Your Father has been delighted to give you the kingdom.” As Father, God comes close to you. He knows your needs and you take comfort in his love. As King, he sovereignly reigns over his kingdom, and his bidding will come to pass. You take comfort in his power. If he is going to speak effectively to your fears, he must be both loving and strong, and indeed he is.
Fathers can give begrudgingly and kings can give simply because they made an oath, but God gives out of his pleasure and delight.
All this inverts our normal way of thinking. We tend to judge God’s words by our own feelings and sensory observations. If we feel orphaned, we believe we are orphaned. If we feel a sense of impending doom, the worst will in fact happen. If we are told that God reigns, but everything seems to be in chaos, we twist God’s revelation about himself to fit our understanding of the data. Scripture, however, reveals the things we can’t see with the naked eye, and God’s self-revelation is a higher authority than our feelings. When our feelings conflict with God’s communication, we must side with God’s
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Scripture assumes that we will be afraid and anxious at times. What is important is where we turn, or to whom we turn when we are afraid.
