Fear
For years I’ve wanted to write a book about fear, largely because I have seen and have experienced fear. Let's face it, I probably will never write that book because as I begin to type I realize, I’m not thorough enough to cover this subject. But for this blog post I do have enough to share. I have a firm belief that fear and pride (pride will have to be another blog) are the source of all, okay most, bad decisions and poor actions the average person makes.
Oh, I know, many of you will be skeptical about this but hear me out. Also, many of you don’t want to admit to yourself that you might have small things that you fear. But everyone does! Sometimes there is a small fear you don’t realize is the motivation behind something you feel or something you are doing.
I’ve heard many people wonder how evil came into our world. And yes, I believe pride was and is a huge factor, but I believe the underlying issue was fear. Human’s were afraid they were missing out on something. Afraid they weren’t being treated fairly. Afraid that someone viewed them at less important. So, they grabbed at a chance to ‘one up’ themselves.
In my life, fear of not being accepted has encouraged me to choose poorly. Fear I wasn’t good enough made me not see that I am a beautiful creation with a purpose. Fear my husband didn’t really love me, made me bottle things up and not be myself. And those are just the obvious ones.
Fear can be good when one is crossing a railroad track, to cause you to look both ways. Fear of failing can push you to do your best. Yes, fear can be a tool. But wouldn’t a better tool for motivation be to want to be the best you, you can be?
I have developed this theory by watching my family. My parents were highly intellectual but a bit country bumpkin. Both raised in rural communities and poor. They met in college. They both loved music and studied education. Because they were highly intelligent but little exposed, they had fears. My father turned down a superintendent position in a small town because he wanted to stay in the rural area. He said it was because he wanted to protect my sister and me. As I watched him and listened to him after growing up I now know it was fear that kept us rural. God is in the small towns as much as he is rural areas. Dad let his fears keep him from reaching and loving even more kids than he did, which is considerable. I have to add here, my parents never had a fear to love anyone, even the unlovely. I miss them very much.
Religious people are fearful of sin. Oh heavenly day! And everyone does it. EVERYONE!!!! I believe that historically the church has really missed the boat here. For fear that people will be drunkards they banned drinking, when the warning in Proverbs was about drinking in excess. And yes, no matter what anyone says, Jesus drank real wine. For fear of promiscuity they banned sex except for procreation, so people were left feeling frustrated. For fear of licentious dancing, they banned all dancing. I could go on, but I believe you get the point.
This brings me to the next point. I’m sure you have heard of the parable of the talents. I have heard preachers expound on this parable many times and they talked about the fear of the man who hid his talent but it never dawned on me that I too have done this.
God is the giver of all good gifts. Physical and/or artistic talent, intellect, compassion, insight, even beauty are all gifts from God. Each should be nurtured, caused to grow, and used to be kind, better the world but most importantly, show love to the world. When we are too lazy to nurture a talent sometimes that sloth comes from fear. Fear that if we put our talent out there it will be ridiculed by someone. Fear that if we try we will fail so we won’t try. Fear due to pride because, oh no we might mess up or be less than perfect (and we will,) fear that others will be better, or that we will be misunderstood. It’s easier to sit on it and take pride in the fact we have this talent we are sitting on but never really use it the way God intended.
This may not sound like a breakthrough to you but as I raised my girls I realized that I have done it and I saw the beginnings of the same fears in them. I hope I have given them enough insight to recognize and avoid these fears.
(One small disclaimer, some of you may think I’m wrong in that beauty is a talent. But who made us? Who made even infants prefer to look at a pleasant face? Who gave each of us a desire for aesthetics? God did! Yes, our physical beauty is superficial and doesn’t last so it is by far not as important as intellect, compassion, insight, etc but God can still use it and will if we don’t let pride rule in that area. Ie. Esther and Rahab just to name a couple. This is where, like the drinking and sex mentioned about, we must walk with Christ to keep it in the correct balance.)
My parents were constantly talking about end times, trying to predict the ‘rapture.’ This cultivated in me a fear of hearing this stuff. But the reason it did is because though my parents denied it, they were afraid of what would happen in between. I believe, no I know, that the reason they studied this so much is that they felt less scared of the future if they felt they could predict it.
From what I’ve read of God’s word, “My ways are higher than yours” we will never understand His plan until it comes to fruition. Then and only then can we see what he had in mind. So, I believe we pray, we live and we LOVE then we don’t worry about trying to predict. He only told us so we would continue to love others to Him.
One last thing, from my high school English classes I learned about sensational writing. I don’t remember my girls having that lesson, maybe they did maybe they didn’t, but they never talked about it so I kinda doubt it. But I don’t think the general public can recognize it. All of our media, from both directions, is sensationalized. You can see the signs. It causes a lot of fear, on both sides! As I’ve always told the girls, the truth is somewhere in the middle and to find it you must walk with Christ like I mentioned before with the drinking and sex.
CS Lewis said, “He, (the evil one) always sends errors in the world in pairs—pairs of opposites… He relies on your extra dislike (or fear) of one to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have not other concern than that with either of them.”
In other words, this brilliant man agrees with me, we have to keep our eyes on Christ so we don’t go to extremes. Only extreme love. We have to keep our eyes on Christ so we don’t fear to use the talents He gave us to love others, all of them!
So my challenge to you is, start watching yourself, listening to your heart, inspecting why you do or do not do some things….I believe you will find fear in some of those. And I believe this awareness helps us avoid fear. And HE said, “fear not.”