Nothing to Fear…
While President Franklin Roosevelt made the line “nothing to fear but fear itself” famous in his 1933 inaugural address, echoes of the sentiment can be found in earlier writers and poets. Indeed, the sentiment is a fine one. It casts fear as an insubstantial thing, something no more able to harm us than a character in a book or an imaginary disease.
My biggest problem with this, however, is that it ignores the crushing reality we feel in the face of fear. It also fails to consider that fear is not always a bad thing. For example, we rightly feel fear in situations that can lead to our injury or death. When confronted with a dangerous animal, we feel a sense of fear that is preservative in nature. I am going to give a rattlesnake a wide berth because I recognize that the situation demands a certain level of respect and consideration. In a similar, but not identical, fashion the Bible talks about the fear of the Lord. We are to fear the Lord (Deuteronomy 10:12, 1 Samuel 12:24, 1 Peter 2:17, etc.) and to serve him. This fear is even said to be the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7). While God is certainly good and loving, we come before him with reverential respect because of who he is. Our relationship with God is simultaneously familial and awe inspiring. This is why I think CS Lewis’ allegorical presentation of Aslan lands so beautifully in our minds. To come before Aslan is to stand in the presence of restrained power. It is to know that you dwell securely in his shadow because he wills it so, and he wills it so because he cares.
As I said, though, fear is not always so positive. Fear becomes a crushing weight when we consider the brokenness of this world. As we watch the declining health of loved ones, we fear the encroach of death and the moment we must say our last goodbye. As we watch inflation surge and gas prices go up like the spinners on a slot machine, we fear for our ability to afford the necessities of life. As we watch the news from Ukraine, we lament the situation and fear a future that could bring wider conflict. In the face of these sorts of fears, it is unhelpful, even unloving, to quote platitudes. It is a cheapening of our experience as humans to say that our fears are not real and that they don’t ultimately matter. I will go a little further, though. I am convinced that this cheapening of fear springs from a distinctly non-Christian worldview.
It is not Christian to flatten the world and pretend that evil and pain are not real. It is not Christian to pretend that fear simply disappears when you become a believer. It is usually at this point that some well-meaning person quotes a verse like 2 Timothy 1:7 (for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.) to “demonstrate” that we have no fear as Christians. Aside from the context of the passage, which is specifically about sharing the Gospel, there is also an implication that even as Christians we will feel fear. If fear disappears for Christians, then there is no reason for Paul to write these words to Timothy. Fear is not an abnormal part of life, but a reality of life. It is a reality of life corrupted by the Fall, but also transformed by the Gospel.
Our fears of death or war or just the future in general are so soul crushing to us because, in our fallen-ness, we show respect and consideration in those situations to the wrong thing. We look at the situation and wonder “What will I do?” or “How will I handle this?” We feel fear’s icy grip on us because we recognize our own inability to fix things and our powerlessness in the face of brokenness. And in a sense, that is correct. None of us can overcome death, or fix the economy, or end war, or feed the hungry. We should feel powerless in the face of all of that. But the beauty of the Gospel is that we have been given a spirit of power and love and self-control. The key is that it is not our power or love or self-control. The one at work in us is the one who is powerful enough to conquer not just fear, but death itself.
The answer to fear is not denial and shame, it is trust. Trust in the only one who truly deserves our fear. Trust in the God who created all things and sustains all things. Trust in the God who cares for us here and now, but who also promises a future where all things are made new. So we bring our fear to the Lord, not shamefully, because the world is a fearsome place and he knows that. We bring our fear to God not to be told it doesn’t exist, but so he can assure us he is greater than all our fears.
If you ask me, the answer to the question, “what do we have to fear?” is not “fear itself,” but rather, it is “fear of self.” A fear that all of the problems of the world are up to us to solve in our own power. Thanks be to God that we live and hope not in the shadow of our own power, but in the shadow of the Almighty.
Until next time…
In Christ,
Mike
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