Fear

FDR. He only feared fear, or at least that was the only thing he wanted to fear.

What do you want to fear? What don't you want to fear?

I'm blogging about a blog. How ludicrous.

So, I was reading on Donal Miller's blog that he gave up fear. What a revolutionary concept. Well, I guess he didn't give it up. I doubt that is possible. He gave up making decisions based on fear. That really struck me. I am not ready to do that. I work at a conservative evangelical church. Their perceptions as a whole equal whether or not I keep getting a paycheck. It seems shallow, I guess, but I make decisions based on fear of perceptions and reactions more than I would like to admit.

A form of the word fear occurs 443 times in the ESV, plus afraid 167 times. I did not realize fear was in the Bible so much. Phrases like "fear not" and "do not be afraid" are in there too (about 100 times). The funny thing about that type of phrase is that it is usually followed by a reason not to be afraid. It would seem that fear needs to be quenched with a valid reason; that valid reason is almost always a promise of God's presence to whom the command is given.

How about that? We are not to fear because God is with us.

Now, I know that God is not with everyone in that way. I am not about to get into that discussion, but think about it: God is with us.

God is with me.

God is with you.

How can we let ourselves get so consumed by fear?

I remember my friend Daniel the Jew once told me that there are basically two types of people in the world. One was guilt driven. I forget what the other one was, goal driven or something, but then he told me that I was a guilt driven. And what is guilt about the future except for fear?

I am afraid, and I am sick of it.

So, what about you? Are you ready to get rid of the bondage of making decisions based on fear? I cannot say that I am. This political season was a reminder of that. What if I had voted for those darn liberals? Then what? I was more than tempted, and I hope that my motivation for not swinging that way was informed by something greater than this spurious emotion. I know people who did lean left, and I saw the sorrow that resulted from an open contempt toward their beliefs and probably them as well.

Fear God. Let's not forget that. I do, however, believe that fear is to be more reverent than full of terror. I do believe that fearing God is a good reason for deciding one way or another on a decision.

My fear, though, the fear that I have come to loathe in myself is a fear of man. This fear is vile in nature and unnecessary by any godly standard. It stems from pride, from lack of faith, from selfishness, from apathy, from affluence, from a sense of entitlement, from the pits of hell, from the depths of my own sin.

This is my first blog. I hope they are not all this melancholy.