He sped down the narrow lane. The clock was unforgiving. It refused to change the fact that he was late, regardless of how far to the right the speedometer needle leaned. The raindrops were even crueler. As he approached the stop light, they conspired against him and sabotaged his tires. The tires fought back with a unified, shrill shriek, but the army of drops had zapped their strength. The steering wheel furiously rotated to avoid the other truck. However, it failed to circumvent the flower garden and the lady waiting for the crosswalk signal. He leapt out of the truck and gasped in horror. “It was just as I feared,” he exclaimed, “I killed the flowers!”
Fear exposes our values. Worry points to where we place our trust. Horror reveals our hearts. Many people fear their fears being exposed because fears give us an x-ray of who we truly are. Although we should not be defined by our fears, our fears can provide us with valuable insight of the contents of our hearts.
God has a few points He wants us to know about fear. The words “fear” and “afraid” are mentioned over 400 times from Genesis to Revelation. We see menacing armies flee in fear. Two fruit-eating humans hide naked in a garden, terrified of facing their God. Jews remain silent, afraid of the religious leaders. Religious leaders also have silent tongues, terrified of being ousted from the synagogue. An entire town begs the Savior of the world to leave their town, overcome with fear of the man who commanded a legion of demons to enter a herd of pigs. A man pretends his wife is his sister. An entire nation forgets God’s unlimited strength when they hear of the strength of their opponents. A close friend denies his identity and his Savior three times to avoid the consequences of the truth.
Faith is a portal for God to show His power. The size of the door can have a correlation with the amount of power God displays in your life. Fear causes that door to shrink and has the ability to lock the door. Perfect love, however, has the ability to unlock any door barricaded with fear and worry (1 John 4:18). God assures us that our worry is unnecessary. Even the sparrows are provided for. Of course, sparrows still go through trials, but ultimately God can work those trials for our good. Scripture repeatedly commands us to have no fear of earthly circumstances or mere mortals (which is a snare), but to have a reverent, submissive fear of God.
The Bible tells us those who fear God have no fear of sudden disaster. A fear of God delights in His commands, is the beginning of all wisdom, is a fountain of life, is pure, hopes in His unfailing love and praises God. It hates evil, pride, arrogance and perverse speech. As a tree planted by the water, it has no fear when heat or drought come. Even if the earth gives way and mountains fall into the sea, there is no fear. “The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them” (Psalm 25:14).
Amazing things occur when we possess a fear of God. A lowly shepherd boy obliterated a giant that had the nation’s best warriors quaking in their sandals. And he did it with complete confidence in God. Not caring if they appeared to be fools, an army marched around Jericho for seven days and witnessed the demise of the city walls. Three young men respectfully informed the king that God had the ability to protect them from the fire (which He did) and was more worthy of worship than the king. Hebrews 11 provides even more examples of ordinary people who placed their faith in an extraordinary God.
Each of these people were led by God to accomplish great things. Anybody can put a stone in a slingshot, walk around a city or stand in the middle of a fire (although they might end up being a well-done, good and faithful servant). Very few possess the faith in God to have confidence in the results of these tasks. The faith witnessed in the actions of these people is more remarkable than the actions themselves. How many times have we ignored the feeling or knowledge that God wanted us to do or say something? Was it too scary? Too embarrassing? Would you lose your status or material possessions? Were you afraid you wouldn’t succeed?
If you feel led to do something and have a fear of failure, you have a failure to trust God. If the cost is too high, you don’t realize what you cost God to redeem you. If you are too embarrassed, that is an embarrassment to your faith. We are not children of fear. We are children of the most faithful Being in the universe. If we can trust that and trust His promises, we have no reason to fear.
Lots of biblical stuff about fear.
4 Reasons not to worry.
