FEAR
Another excerpt from "Peace on Earth?" By David May
CHAPTER 5
What
is the Proper Place for Fear in our Lives?
“God is bigger than the boogie man,
He’s bigger than Godzilla or the monsters on TV,
Oh, God is bigger than the boogie man,
And he’s watching out for you and me- ee-ee, hey!”
-
Junior Asparagus[1]
Enough said.
God is indeed bigger than anything in this world that we might choose to
be afraid of. Jesus has overcome the
world. He said so.[2] And he tied that directly to his desire that
we be at peace in the world. He was not talking about some esoteric peace
in the sky bye and bye. In the same
verse where he spoke of us having peace, he mentioned our troubles in the world and then affirmed that he has
overcome the world. That is where our
peace comes from. He is our shepherd and
our guardian and he is in charge!
In 1 John the author is talking about contrary
spirits, those who would deny the divinity of Christ. In the middle of that conversation he
confirmed that because we are from God we have overcome those spirits, “because greater is he who is in you than he
who is in the world.”[3] That has to be the text for Junior
Asparagus’ little reassuring song about God being bigger than the boogie
man. Junior, by the way is one of the
characters in the Veggie Tales series.
I’d love to watch those writers at work some day. They must have a great time.
We are overcomers!
One chapter after the “Greater is he” quote, John
reiterates: “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world--our
faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”[4]
We are believers and we have nothing to be
afraid of. But sometimes we act in ways
that deny the truth of that fact.
Particularly to outsiders, we tend to look very afraid. We are afraid someone is taking our country
in the wrong direction. We are afraid of
the collapse of the American dream. We
are afraid of Al- Qaeda and other terrorists.
We are afraid that immigrants will ruin the good deal we’ve got – a
better deal than most anyone else in the world.
What we fail to understand is that God is bigger than all of that and
more. And he is on our side. He has our back.
Why are we
afraid?
Why are we afraid? Because we don’t trust. And because of how we view this world in which
we live. Have we never really sung and
believed the old song “This world is not my home”? We have put down roots here; unlike Abraham
who just packed up and moved when God said “Go” without even knowing where he
was headed.[5]
I love this nation. It is the best deal we could find or build on
this earth. Could it be better? For sure.
Could it be worse? Are you
kidding? Have you read a newspaper or
watched the news in the last ten years?
In fact that’s what we are afraid of, isn’t it? That we will become what we read about in the
rest of the world. Yet we need to
understand that America is a part of the material world. Sisters and brothers, America is not our
home. We are ”…Just a passing
through. Our treasures are laid up
somewhere beyond the blue.”[6]
We have been commissioned to make America as
loving a place as we possibly can, but we are not charged with preventing its
financial or military collapse. If we
finish our lives sneaking around on Sundays to meet with other Christians for
worship in order to avoid arrest by the ruling Muslim powers, we should understand
that God is still in charge. And we can
continue being his loving people is spite of what else is going on around us. Just like the little bird, singing away in
the middle of the cat 5 storm.
Do not be
afraid
For
us not to be afraid must be one of the most persistent parts of God’s message
to us. He must have understood the
difficulty of that request. Over 60
times in the Old Testament he said to mankind, “Do not be afraid.” And again in the New Testament he kept saying
it, “Do not be afraid.” Whether it was through
Moses speaking to the people as they were preparing to go in and take the
promised land,[7] or through an angel appearing to Mary to tell
her of her future[8]
the message was the same: we are not to be a fearful people. Reassuring the Israelites, Moses, speaking
for God said, “He will not fail you or forsake you.” That is still his reassurance to us today and
his reminder of why it is that we are afraid.
We are afraid because we do not trust that God will truly take all of
what is happening in our horrible lives right now and will work it together for
our good.[9] But he will.
He promised. And he keeps his
promises.
When the disciples woke Jesus up on the boat to
calm the stormy sea, he had to calm his students first. “Why
are you afraid?” he asked. And he
accused them of being of little faith.[10] You see that is the answer. We are afraid because our faith is weak. Our
trust is weak. And when we are afraid,
whether it is because of big scheme political reasons, or over the potential
loss of a loved one to sickness or divorce, or because of the potential for
financial loss or loss of face among our friends or coworkers, we need to ask
God to increase our faith. And we should
ask our friends to pray the same prayer for us.
Courage has to be a major part of the peace
Jesus wanted to leave us with. But it is not a courage that comes from being
sure of ourselves and our own abilities.
When Moses spoke to Israel just before they went in to conquer the
promised land, he told them to be strong and courageous, not because they were
a powerful army or because the enemy was weak, but because God was going with
them. He told them not to be afraid or
tremble at their enemy. “He will not
fail you or forsake you,” Moses said. God
says we don’t have anything to be afraid of because he has our back.
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