Day 2 In the beginning

 What is fear?   

Im guessing that if you ask that question to most people they will tell you that fear is a response to danger and that it is something we need to have in order that we can keep ourselves safe.  Most people will tell you it is not a pleasant feeling. Some might say it can be overwhelming.  In our modern world we have done what we so often do with things we dont want to confront head on - we re-invent and modify by renaming.  (Remember when global warming suddenly became 'climate change'? The enemy is very clever at subtly changing how we think about things by renaming them)

We have watered down the language to try to make fear less scary - anxiety, worry, panic attacks, phobias, OCD,  acute shyness , nightmares, poor mental health - these can all be terms the world uses to disguise the fact that what we are really dealing with is FEAR

Is fear really a natural response to scary things?  Has God created a fear response in us so that we can run away from danger?

NO.

Lets go back to the start

Gen 2 19-20   When God made Adam he wasn't afraid of snakes and spiders and tigers. He lived in harmony with creation and there was nothing to be afraid of.

Fear is a result of the fall.   The first incidence of fear is in Gen 3:10   ' I was afraid because I was naked so hid'.

The reason Adam was afraid was because he suddenly KNEW he was naked.  He KNEW he had disobeyed God but it wasnt the knowledge that made him afraid it was the imagined consequences.  Adam was imagining what God might do, how He would respond.  Had God given Adam any reason to fear?  Nope. He had told Adam that if he ate from the tree he would die.  But did Adam have any concept of what death was?   Adam must have been imagining what that word ' die' meant.  I find it fascinating that a man who had zero experience of anything remotely negative was suddenly able to start catastrophising.  Thats what sin did, and does. Adam's imaginings made him afraid and his fear made him hide.   Up until that moment Adam's mind was only filled with God.  God had breathed into Adam and that breath was Adam's whole life.  His mind was at one with God's mind.  His heart was at peace. His spirit was alive. And there was no fear in him. 

This all changed when Adam ate the fruit and listened to the serpent.  Something other entered Adam. Forbidden fruit entered his stomach. Lies entered his ears.  And in that moment Adam's body and mind became infected. The very first result of the fall was fear.  The fear was illogical. It was unnecessary. God loved Adam and Eve. If they had gone to God and confessed their sin and trusted in their loving creator how different things might have been.  But their minds were now full of  'did God...?' ' what if...?' ' what now?.....'  and they hid



Think about areas in your life where you experience fear. How much of that fear is about imagined consequences?  Do your fears make you hide?  From God, from significant others, from pastoral support?

Heres a poem I wrote ages ago about fear.  Fear is talking


I will tell you ninety eight percent of what is true

But you

will take the other two

percent and will extrapolate

and generate

a crushing weight

of possibilities

I will place one simple scene into your mind

and you will find

yourself suddenly blind

to any kind

of common sense

Imagining worst case scenarios

You will see me in the stranger

and the friend

your health, the weather,

the passing years.

All these fears

and the anxious tears you shed

are my reward

Your torment is my joy

Thank you for your time


Lord, today please show me any and every fear that I am harbouring in my mind. Shine your light on anything that is hiding in the shadows and especially highlight anything that is causing me to fear You and hide from You.  This Advent as we walk towards the joy and peace and life of Christmas, please speak your Truth, dismantle all fear and allow me to live in the freedom Jesus died to give me.  Amen

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