Tag: Fear

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Fear on Mute

Just recently, I had a long drive home on a dark, rainy night. Alone in the car, my mind began to turn over an issue that was causing me some anxiety. With every swipe of the wiper blades my own internal conversation with my fears intensified. Finally it occurred to me that I had a choice: I did not have to listen to or converse with my own unhealthy fears! I felt a wave of peace break over me, but at the same time, I wondered if this strategy was perhaps denial?  

The next morning, my question was answered as I was reading from the book of Isaiah. At chapter 36 we find the king of Assyria attempting to paralyze the people of God with fear. In verse 1 we learn that he had already conquered all of the fortified cities of Judah. Now his sights are set on Israel, ruled by King Hezekiah. The Assyrian king blasphemes to Hezekiah’s representatives, deliberately within earshot of citizens in Jerusalem: “Who of all the gods of these countries have been able to save their lands from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?” (Isaiah 36:20). And yet, notwithstanding this terrifying propaganda, we are told, “the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, ‘Do not answer him.’” (verse 21).

There was the “mute button” that silences the fear that would seek to undermine our trust in God’s faithfulness. We don’t have to listen to this unhealthy fear going on and on. We don’t even have to face down our fear and win the argument. In God’s strength, we can ignore these false sirens. In just these circumstances, the Lord simply says, “Do not be afraid of what you have heard.” (Isaiah 37:6). 

So, if I refuse to listen to or engage with unhealthy fear, what do I do instead? If not these false sirens, who should I be talking to? King Hezekiah refashioned his anxious thoughts into prayer. Pressing into the presence and sovereignty of God, we are told, “Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: ‘Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth.’” (Isaiah 37:15-16)

The Lord’s response to Hezekiah’s prayer is worth noticing because we don’t see an instant fix. The Lord does not start at that place of removing Hezekiah’s foe – not because He likes to keep us waiting, but His heart for us is always so much more. God’s immediate answer to Hezekiah is the gift of restored hope. God reassures him, “This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit…The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” (Isaiah 37:30, 32b). This is a wonderful picture of God’s promise of faithful and abundant provision – provision that has nothing to do with Hezekiah’s efforts but all about God’s faithfulness; provision that is multiplied. In this way, God lifts Hezekiah’s eyes off of the taunting enemy in front of him and sets him on an upward trajectory of hope. Hezekiah must have surely felt God’s peace break over him.

Of such a hope, Peter wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Peter 1:3 ESV). In times of challenge God will always seek to renew and strengthen our hearts with His living hope. I wonder how many times I have looked past this gift because I was preoccupied with wanting an instant solution?

Having restored hope, the Lord does answer Hezekiah’s prayer. God promises, “I will defend this city and save it.” (Isaiah 37:35). Contrary to fear’s propaganda, God is faithful. He both overcomes the king of Assyria and even turns the enemy against itself (Isaiah 37:36-38). 

At the Cross, wrote Henry Blocher, “God turns [evil] back on itself. He takes the supreme crime, the murder of the only righteous person – [and makes this] the very operation that abolishes sin.” Because of this victory, Paul would both censor fear and restore God’s hope in each of us. “The Lord will rescue [you] from every evil deed and bring [you] safely into His heavenly kingdom.” (2 Timothy 4:18). 

In Jesus, you don’t have to listen to or even engage with unhealthy fear. With the encouragement and power of the Holy Spirit, you can push that mute button. Instead of engaging with fear, God would have you engage with Him. Bring him all your burdens for He delights to breathe His eternal hope in you, and to defend and save you. 

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The Father, the Spirit, and an Elevator

When I was a small boy, my dad would often drop by his office on a Saturday morning, and if I promised not to do any damage, I could go with him. Part of the office complex was an old warehouse four stories high, with a basement and a large elevator that ran through its center. The elevator was an ancient relic, with large metal gates that shook the building as they manually slammed shut. To me it was more like an iron cage.

It’s amazing what captures the heart of a six-year-old boy, but riding that elevator on my own was an adventure, particularly if in my mind I was James Bond or Batman or Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man. The elevator had just two buttons: a green one and a red one. My dad’s only instruction was that I was not to press the red one. I obeyed, but on the way home I got curious. I asked my dad what would have happened if I had “accidentally” pressed the red button.

“Son,” he said gravely, “if you had pressed the red button, the elevator would have come to a halt, and I would never have been able to find you!”

If my dad was seeking to put the fear of God into me, he was successful. For months all I could think about when I went to bed was pressing the red button and condemning myself to being holed up in a dark elevator shaft forever!

All children need reassurance. I see it in my own children, and notwithstanding all that Jesus did for us on the Cross, the Father knows this need within His own children. It is, therefore, a truly wonderful thing that an integral part of the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit is to continually reassure us of our status as God’s beloved children. St. Paul writes, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:14-15) Paul’s reference to adoption is very deliberate. To his first-century Roman readers, families were the building blocks of Roman society. Under Roman law, during the process of adoption, the adoptee received an irrevocable new identity; his old obligations and debts were wiped out. The adopted son (or daughter) became a member of the family, just as if he had been born of the blood of the adopter. He was invested with all the privileges of a filius familias. In the same way, St. Paul is able to write, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ…” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18a NRSV)

The Holy Spirit brings that reassurance to our hearts in relation to our adoption as God’s children. “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” St. Paul writes in Romans 8:16. Jane Williams, Anglican theologian and writer, states, “The Spirit’s job is to make us able to stand in Jesus’ own place in relation to the Father.” This is a profound truth. Yes, we are that loved. Yes, we are that secure. Yes, we belong that much. The Spirit embeds that assurance within us, applying a familial belovedness to our deepest place of desire.

Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff wrote about our deep need for reassurance: “The most frightening and unbearable feeling is abandonment and rejection, knowing that we are not accepted. It is like being a ‘stranger in the nest,’ experiencing psychological death. When I say ‘Father,’ I seek to express the conviction that there is someone who accepts me absolutely. My moral situation matters little. [Because of Jesus] I can always trust that there awaits a parental lap to receive me. There I will not be a stranger but a child, even if prodigal, in my heavenly Father’s house.” 

Several months after the fated elevator conversation, my dad came home late one night from work and came upstairs to check on me. He caught me sobbing into my pillow after I had thought long and hard about the elevator, that scary iron cage, stuck, with me in it, in the dark shaft of the vast abyss of a warehouse. I imagined myself pressing the red button and was gripped with fear, in the darkness of my own room, of being lost forever. When he finally convinced me to tell him what was upsetting me, I recall his response: “Son, if you had pressed the red button, I would have come looking for you. I would not have stopped looking until I had found you — and I would have found you!”

Fear melted away. That was all I needed to hear.