Faith and Fear

Fearaith

April 20, 2016

I've been talking to a lot of people lately - actually, for quite some time - about fear.  Their fear or fears I should add.  Some fears are well founded, but most fears just leave me wondering about faith and fear.  I should add that I have grown into my current worldview.  After all, I've been faced with a few fears.

There are fears we all face and grow beyond.  Correction, fears we all face and most of us grow beyond.  Like the fear of being called upon in class.  Some of us face that fear still on Sunday mornings, "I hope no one asks me to read Scripture this morning!"  There are fears related to performance in a new job.  There was the time as a teenager when a group of us thought we were being chased by a sea monster.  There was the time I was at the police station with my buddies and didn't want to call home for a ride - I walked.  There was the time in college when it was the middle of the night, I was driving, took a wrong turn and ended up in the seedier side of Baltimore.  I woke my sleeping buddies up and no one slept the rest of the night.

These pale to those times of gut wrenching terror when one fears for life.  Like the time when an irate customer entered our store and threatened to kill everyone.  Or, the time when I was alone with a couple of drug-crazed kids and wondered why I hadn't told anyone where I was going.  I can still vividly remember the fear as we lost control of a 24-foot fishing boat in heavy seas off of Sebastian Inlet.  But all of these are surpassed by the humbling power of nature displayed in a hurricane. I have lived through several.  Most were just near misses or did not live up to predictions.  They serve to let down your guard for the ones that change lives.  Live through something like that and you are left with deep and abiding realization of just how small and powerless you are in the universe.

It was just such a storm when Jesus inspired awe in his disciples.  The story teaches us a lot about fear, and faith.  Considering the nature of our fears today it is a lesson, and a principle, still in need of being apprehended.

 Jesus Calms a Storm
35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
--Mark 4:35–41 (ESV)

Make a list of your fears.  Add to that your hates, for most hate is founded on fear. Read this passage after each item on your list.  I like the way Matthew structured the question Jesus asked in his version of the event.  Ask yourself that very same question, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"  I would add another question - pertinent to this passage.  What fear, life event, threat, challenge, hurdle, trial, tribulation, angels, demons, authority, power, death, disease, present event, future threat, or anything in all creation (I borrowed all that from somewhere - I'm pretty sure it was the Bible) is bigger than Christ your Lord?  Imagine the discourse:

1) Unpaid bills -  "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"
2) Storms are coming - "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"
3) Our country is going belly up - "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"
4) The (Blank) are coming! - "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"
5) I might have cancer - "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"
6) My marriage is in trouble - "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"
7) We might be persecuted! - "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"
8) Fear! - "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"
9) Hatred! - "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"
10) The myth that anything is in my control - "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"

This does not mean life is promised to be idyllic, "In this life you will have many troubles."  No, the one who is for us is bigger than anything, anyone who stands against us.  The garden is promised not for the here and now, but in the new earth, the new Jerusalem.  Besides, most fears we tend to outlive.

I should mention that the sea monster was my best friend's dog.

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