Fear Cannot be Reasoned With.

     Fear cannot be reasoned with.  It will either be embraced or rejected.  Fear is not something that can place conditions on or compartmentalize.  We either buy into the narrative it presents or we refuse to believe.  I talked about risk last week.  Risk is looking fear straight in the eye and either being paralyzed by it or casting it aside and diving into action.  There is no middle ground.  Acting in spite of fear even has a name: Courage.  The skaters choose how they will respond to the barrage of fear upon their hearts and their minds.  We also get to choose how we respond...do we embrace it or reject it?

     Over the years, I have seen fear played out in a lot of different ways...some more socially acceptable than others.  Consider:

• The young woman who chooses one bad relationship after another...because she is afraid of being alone.
• The young man who pursues success so fervently that he burns himself out, alienating all those around him...because he is terrified of failure.
• The youth who choose to drown in drugs and alcohol rather than face rejection and alienation.
• The adults who choose to stay in dead-end, destructive patterns in their life rather than face the uncertainty of change.
• Greed is a manifestation of fear:  We fear that there will not be enough in this world for us, so we hoard all we can.
• Anger is a manifestation of fear: Often rising from a loss of control of our surroundings, we lash out.
• Fear is a primary tool of advertising, used to create a "Felt Need" whether it be real or not.

Fear blinds our senses. It dulls our brains. It makes our hearts race and our eyes dart.  Fear isolates us from friends and family and God himself.  It calls us to either fight or flee and save the thinking and praying for later.  Fear is the charioteer cracking his whip in our ears and urging us to run as fast as we can.

     Fear is a choice.  A daunting, difficult choice to be sure, but a choice none the less.  We can choose to embrace the worldview that is offered by Fear.  Or we can choose to reject it and believe something else.  For the only thing that can take the place of Fear is Faith.  The strength of the object of your Faith will determine how successfully it can take the place of your Fear. 

     Christians, of all the peoples and faiths in the world, should be the least likely to choose Fear.  The God that they profess belief in comes out and explicitly says that He did not give them a spirit of Fear, but a spirit of power, love and self-control.  He tells them over and over again not to fear because He will never leave them, He is greater than anything else in this world, He loves them, He has directed all their steps, He is preparing a place for them for eternity, etc.  If any of that is true, then choosing to believe Fear is turning your back on what God says and must be repented of.

     Wow.  That got kind of serious all of the sudden.  My final point is this:  The world is a big, scary place full of tons of opportunities with no guarantee of safety.  We will be challenged.  We will be afraid.  We will have the choice to make:  Faith or Fear.  When that time comes ("when" not "if"), take a moment before you act.  Simply take a moment to reflect on whether the object of your Faith is big enough to replace the Fear bearing down on you and then act accordingly.