A word of fright or perhaps even fear. At the very least, it’s the shriek heard when a mouse runs across the floor. I grew up in an old farmhouse built in the early 1900s and remember various creatures running or jumping across the living room floor occasionally. While others might have cringed at it, we thought it was funny as we look back. In fact, during cricket season (and I’m not talking about the English game), we used to make a game out of flicking black crickets across the room at one another as they crawled across the floor. Perhaps disgusting for some, but it brings back happy memories for me.
As I have watched the various news channels and read reports about the spread of the coronavirus around the world, I have noticed the fear that drives people. Now I am not saying that the concerns are not valid. I’ve just noticed how fear has grasped and is controlling people. Perhaps it’s part ignorance, but I have found it odd that toilet paper of all things is flying off the shelves at local stores, especially given that this is a respiratory issue. As I said though perhaps it’s a matter of my ignorance. Clearly though the level of fear in people has risen amid this current worldwide crisis.
Fear. It can be a tyrannical ruler in our life. We often fear the future and what it might entail for us or our loved ones. Fear of what others think of us drives us to compromise of our values and principles and often negatively influences the decision that we make. Fear can drive us to irrational decisions and ill-placed trust in a source that does not have the power to change the circumstances we face or are presently going through.
A life driven by fear affects one emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Mentally, fear creates anxiousness and creates a roller coast for one’s emotions. Physically it affects one’s blood pressure, heart health, and among other things has the possibility to create false illnesses. Spiritually it causes us to trust self rather than God. Fear literally can arrest us in each of these facets of our person.
The Bible has much to say about fear. In fact, ahead of writing this article, I posted a verse on Facebook that is very fitting and that I was thinking of as I wrote this article today.
“When I am afraid, I trust in you. In God—I boast in his promise—in God I trust; I am not afraid.”
Psalm 56:3-4 NET
In other places we read:
“Do not be afraid, for I am with you! Do not be frightened, for I am your God!
Isaiah 41:10a NET
“Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.”
Proverbs 29:25 NET
Time and time again, we are told not to fear circumstances or men. The only time we are told to fear is in respect to the Lord whether it be his judgement or generally speaking of the respect we are to afford him. We are to plan for what may come (Prov 13:16). We are to act in wisdom. But we are not to live in fear. I wonder if fear is not motivated in part by too tight of a grasp on the present rather than living considering the paradise that awaits us. Michelle and I were reading our devotional last night and were struck by this comment:
“We say we really do believe that there is life after this one ends. Our formal theology contains the fact of a new heaven and a new earth to come. But we tend to live with the anxiety and drivenness that come when we believe that all we have is this moment.”
Paul David Tripp
We are to live in faith in our Creator and Savior, understanding that he is good and unchanging in his character. We are to live in faith knowing that God cares for us much more than the sparrow which he too created and supplies everything for. We are to live in faith aware of the love that motivated him to send his Son as a sacrifice for our sin that we might have life and a relationship with him. We are to live mindful of the future that awaits us which should reorganize our priorities and give us perspective. It should be motivation for us in the present. We are not to live oblivious to the present world. But let’s not allow fear to be a tyrannical ruler in our lives. Rather may faith be what people know us for—faith in God.