Running Scared: Fear, Worry, and the God of Rest

by Edward T. Welch

If we are fixated on things that surround our future death, we don’t understand that most of the important stuff has already happened. We have already died with Christ. There is no more penalty for sin that must be paid—Jesus was the perfect sacrifice. Our liberation from the kingdom of darkness has been secured. No change could be more significant. Eternity will be beautiful, but it will just add color to the life we already have in Christ.

If you have a hard time looking forward with joy, look backward and see what has already happened. You can’t die twice. If you have died with Christ, the second death has no power over you: “Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years” (Rev. 20:6).

When you erode the fear of death with the knowledge that you already died, you will find yourself moving toward a simple, bold obedience. It’s as if fear needs to be replaced in our lives, and it is replaced with the simple question, What does my Father, the King, want me to do now?

“Things above”—that’s something on which we can meditate. What are they? They certainly include the details of earthly life, but those details are now seen with the knowledge that God is with us and that he will give us manna tomorrow. As a result, there is a wholeheartedness in what we do. We aren’t always compromised by our concerns about the future. We can give all our attention to the way our faith can express itself in love right now.

The cross of Christ proves his love and faithfulness. What more can he say than that? When you allow your own history of abuse or disappointment or betrayal to challenge the love of God, the cross continues to stand as the conclusive proof of his care. No, it doesn’t answer all your questions, but the truth it conveys about God and his love is irrefutable.

If God seems too good to be true, you are beginning to know him. He does not treat you the way a human being would. Instead, he wants his love to stand out in bold relief from the mediocrity of human relationships. He wants to be seen as incomparable.

The oral culture of Scripture, however, interpreted repetition in a different way. Important days in history were reenacted yearly. When you wanted to dramatize the importance of what you were saying, you repeated it. Only those things that were critical deserved repeating. The more it was repeated, the more important it was.

This is how God responds to our doubts. He repeats, “Do not be afraid,” because he has given us good reason not to be afraid. But that is only the beginning. Although you would expect the King to speak in edicts and forbid questions, this is a King who actually invites us to voice our doubts. When we do, he will go so far as to make his word a public, legal oath that is witnessed by others. He uses the strongest language possible to assure us of his truthfulness and reliability.

Prayer is harder than we think. On the surface, it seems so easy that we gloss over it as a way out of worry. Who can’t talk to God and say, “Help, I am afraid”? But our natural instinct is to trust in ourselves and take control when life is out of control. To actually stop and pray is contrary to our sense that we must do something—and do it quickly.

Prayer is counterintuitive. It is the opposite of what we would normally think or do. Therefore, we are compelled to call out, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). Fear and anxiety are always occasions for us to mature as people who pray.

Once again, we are reminded that prayer is not natural to us. Complaining and grumbling are, but not prayer. Yet along with this historical precedent is a growing tradition that gains ground every day: The people of the kingdom are calling out to the King. Peter is imploring us to be part of that tradition.

Keep this in your mind: He is the God who comes to serve rather than be served (Matt. 20:28). Don’t expect to understand it, because we have no analogy for this in all of human life, but believe it. There is nothing begrudging in his service. It is his choice, and he has sworn himself to it.

In one of the amazing paradoxes of the kingdom, when God takes our burdens and takes the position of a servant, he reveals our inability and his sufficiency. As such, he is exalted as the God of the mighty hand.

If the Christian community is in agreement on anything, it agrees that petitions are best kept for last. The best known acronym for prayer is ACTS: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. It is devised to restrain us from making prayer a laundry list of requests. Throughout church history wise men and women have preached that prayer is more than petitions, and no doubt wise people will continue to preach it because we are so slow to learn.

When we get distracted during prayer, we need help. One strategy is to pray with other people. That includes flesh-and-blood friends as well as saints of the church who have left us their written prayers. Among those written prayers, the Psalms are the favorites.

Here is the challenge. When you call out, you might feel like he isn’t present or easily found. That is the nature of pain. The worse it is, the more alone you feel. But this is a time when the words of God must override your feelings. There are times when we listen to our feelings and times when we don’t. This is a time when we don’t. Instead, whenever there is a clash between our sensory experience and the promises of God, the promises of God win. The one who says “verily, verily” can be trusted. Call out and he will be found when you need him.

Get the picture firmly in your mind. On one side you have the worrisome events. Go ahead and even exaggerate them, but don’t spend too much time doing it. On the other side is an unshakable kingdom that makes all the commotion look like a tempest in a teapot, a de-clawed tabby up against the king of the jungle. And don’t think that God is ignoring the commotion. As the ever-present help, he quickly comes to his people at the break of day, when battles are usually fought. Contrary to our feelings, he is already on the move. It’s enough to make you break out into a chorus, “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Anxieties and fears need an alternative. They need something bigger and better that will make the provoking events seem insignificant in comparison. Here is something bigger. Here is a conclusion that leads us into the fear of the Lord. While it might look like the other forces are winning, they are not. God will be exalted, and we will be amazed.

That, in fact, is part of the disruption of God’s peace: We blame-shift, judge, and find fault in others while we pardon ourselves. When we see such arrogant behavior in others, we are outraged. But in ourselves, it somehow seems like we are doing justice. We have been wronged and we are trying to make it right, by yelling, belittling, ignoring—by hating. Justice is essential to peace, and such biased judgments wreak havoc on our modern world. When we are quick to judge others rather than look at our own hearts, we are electing to live outside of the kingdom of heaven, and outside the kingdom there are only false hopes of peace. Apart from repentance, any dabbling in the kingdom of the earth constitutes treason against God and bondage to Satan.

Lions and lambs—the era has already begun. This metaphoric language finds its fulfillment in the strong caring for the weak rather than oppressing them. Leaders have been wolves throughout history, and the predominant crime of humanity has been its oppression of weak and helpless lambs. The kingdom of heaven will bring an end to such oppression. It will come gradually, but it will certainly come.

We know that our forgiveness is fully dependent on God’s mercy, but once we have tasted forgiveness we too will forgive. If we are reluctant forgivers, we simply do not know God’s forgiveness. In a similar way, if we have known peace, we will be peacemakers.

His motto? God will take care of the future; what is my calling now? Why did he talk about calling? Because anything short of that was not enough to rouse him from his obsessive groove.

All right, the witnesses have appeared. They have said what we have heard before, but the relentlessness of their testimony is compelling. Now we must do something. “Okay, you’re right” is not enough. We must stand in protest against the kingdom of earth, which says that there is nothing more than today, so it’s best to eat, drink, and be merry. We must do hope. To begin, we confess that our fears and worries reveal us. We have bought the lie that tragedy is the last word. Though that might seem like a simple misunderstanding to be treated with a slight cognitive correction, the reality is that such a belief is highly personal. It says that God is neither good nor in control. We are essentially saying that God’s promises aren’t true; that he is a liar.

Track your fears with the light of Scripture and you are directed to God. Your fears are more about God than you realize. Along the way that light also helps you see yourself more clearly. What you see is that the world is organized into two kingdoms, and the boundary between those two kingdoms, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed, cuts right through each of our hearts. Our preference is to straddle that line, but our patient God keeps persuading us to be wholeheartedly devoted to his kingdom. There is no other way to distance ourselves from fear and anxiety.