FEAR vs. fear
Taylor Martin
October 24, 2007
Fear can dominate life. It can leave even the strongest of individuals paralyzed into indecision and doubt. It can pronounce itself as director of your life or can simply linger at the edge of consciousness second-guessing and misguiding at every turn. Or it can be used for a good purpose.
All throughout the gospels fear is presented to and dealt with by Jesus. Out on the stormy seas of Galilee the disciples panic begging the Christ to flex his divine muscles. The man who was subjugated to torture by the legion of demons was healed by the words of Jesus.
The point is that fear can destroy us. It can form itself into a crippling disease that is quite difficult to be freed from. Yet, it doesn't have to. We, as Christians, are told that we have nothing to be afraid of. The fear of sin, the fear of failure, the fear of being disliked can all be removed by the grace of God.
Some fear can be controlled and limited by addressing it intellectually, by sizing it up as an opponent to be defeated, and then following through on the game plan. Yet, the fears that conquer, that have grown and festered to the point of constant defeat, we need to move that fear out of our minds and into our gut. To move it into the gut means to feel it emotionally and to then invite Christ to provide the grace we so desperately need.
Some fears, some failings, cannot be conquered no matter how hard we try. Do we ever stop trying? No. We cannot stop, yet we have to recognize our own strength in comparison to the strength of the Father.
In The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis illustrates this nicely. At first Shasta (the boy) hears Aslan the lion (the Christ character) and is afraid that he is going to be killed. After some time spent with Aslan, Shasta has a (somewhat) different response.
Shasta was no longer afraid that the Voice [Aslan] belonged to something that would eat him, nor that it was the voice of a ghost. But a new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too.
Fear of the Lord can strengthen us. To be aware of the fact that the Almighty is more tremendous than we can ever imagine spurns this on to perseverance as well as a peace stemming from trust in his providence.