Fearing Fear

I heard it again this morning:  fear is wrong.  Fear is never appropriate for a Christian to feel.  It might be appropriate under certain circumstances to be angry, or to grieve, but never to fear.

I hear that a lot.  I hear a lot that Christians are never supposed to fear, that fear is not of the Lord, that fear is sin, that fear is wrong.  I've heard that the Bible tells us 365 times not to fear (or some variation of that) -- conveniently, one for every day of the year.  I don't know if it's true or not; I've never bothered to count.  (I wonder what happens on leap years?  Do we have free reign to live in terror that day?)  I certainly do know that the Bible tells people often not to fear.

But what exactly does that mean?

Am I really supposed to believe that fear, in and of itself, is a sinful emotion?  That the emotion of fear is never appropriate, never of God?

When I'm walking down a street and a guy jumps out at me to mug me, fear is inappropriate?
When the neighbour's dog approaches me, growling, tail twitching, teeth showing, fear is inappropriate?
When I'm driving through a winter storm with knuckles clenched on the steering wheel, fighting to keep my car between the lines of the lane I can hardly see through the snow, fear is inappropriate?
When I'm told that the results aren't good and it's looking like I've got only a couple years, or months, or weeks to live, and the end is going to be rough, fear is inappropriate?
When I'm laid off and I have no money in the bank and bills to pay and mouths to feed, fear is inappropriate?

I don't think so.  I really don't.  I really think it's a lie.

Fear, in and of itself, is no more sinful than any other emotion:  anger, grief, hurt, sadness, love, happiness, excitement.  It's just a feeling.   In fact, I believe it's a God-given emotion.

It's a feeling that warns us that something is terribly wrong and that our lives are at risk.  It is a feeling that shoots us full of adrenaline so that we are equipped for fight or flight.  Without fear, we would recklessly endanger our lives.  Fear keeps us in one piece.  When the neighbour's growling dog approaches, the snake of fear warns me to back away and get out of there.  When the snow whips across my windshield, the cold wind of fear cautions me to slow down, stay back, or get off the road altogether.  It's not a sin to feel fear.

But for too many years, I believed it was.  I believed fear was a sin, and it crippled me.  No matter how much I tried to not feel fear, there were times when I did feel it.  I tried to retreat from life and run from risk, because taking a risk meant feeling fear, and fear was wrong, so I refused the risk.   I tried to pretend that I wasn't afraid when I was.  I acted tough and strong and even mean so no one would see that I was afraid.  I brought a pretend-me into my relationships, with others and with God, but pretend-me wasn't real, and real-me was lonely.  My masks stifled me and suffocated me and distanced me from God -- God who was calling out to real-me while pretend-me tried to convince him that she was actually real-me, as if I could fool God.  All because I had heard and believed that fear is sin and never appropriate for a true follower of Jesus to feel.

But you know what?  I believe that Jesus felt fear.  Listen to this:  "He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed,  "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.  And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground"  (Luke 22:41-44).  In John 12, Jesus says, "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? `Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour."  Now, I know that neither of these verses actually use the word "fear", but they sure don't sound like the words of a man who is saying, "Bring it on!  I'm not afraid!"  As he looked ahead to the horror he was facing at the cross, I think Jesus felt fear.  And justifiably so.  His life was in danger, and fear warns us that our lives are in danger.

So I think it's a lie to believe that fear is, carte blanche, wrong, and sinful, and inappropriate for a Christian to feel.  In fact, I think it could even be a lie of the evil one to keep us in denial, to keep us from taking risks that might otherwise make us feel afraid.  I think it is a lie that cripples us.  In our desperation to avoid the "sin" of fear, we begin to fear fear itself.

No, fear is just a feeling, a feeling like any other one.  Where we cross the line from appropriate feelings of fear to sinful fearing is where we allow the fear to control us without stopping to analyse it.  It's not the feeling that's sinful; it's how we respond to it.  There are times when I feel fear, but when I stop to think about it, I know logically that there is no reason to fear.  So if I see the neighbour's dog snarling and growling, and my heart leaps and thuds to my toes, but I stop for a second and notice that the dog is tied up with a heavy chain (the dog does not exist, by the way -- he's merely an illustration), I will not allow the fear to cause me to run away in terror.  Instead, I will control it, and walk past the house, staying beyond the length of the chain.  There are other times when I feel fear, but I know that what I must do is right and it is what God is calling me to do, so I must move forward despite my feeling of fear.  My mouth might be dry, my hands clammy, my heart racing, my knees knocking, but I will do what I must do, because it is the right thing to do.  Like Jesus, who went to the cross, even though he was sweating blood.

It seems to me that for every time God says, "Do not fear," in the Bible, it's probably too late -- he's saying it because someone is already afraid.  Is he really saying, "You wretch, you just sinned"? Or is he perhaps saying, "It's ok.  You're on the right track.  I know how it looks, and I know how you feel, but keep moving forward.  I'm in control.  Don't look at the fear.  Look at me.  Trust me."  Fear is just a feeling.  It is not wrong.  It is not sin.  It is not inappropriate.  What is inappropriate, and sin, and wrong, is blindly allowing fear to rule my life, blindly assuming that just because I am feeling fear means that my life really is at risk, or that my life-at-risk is so all-fired important that I must preserve it at all cost, even if that means outright disobeying my Lord.  What is sinful is if I allow fear to control and paralyse me, rather than allowing God's Spirit to control and empower me.

I have laid down the masks.  I have quit trying to pretend I don't feel fear.  I have quit playing it safe in an effort to prevent myself from feeling fear.  I just admit it.  There are lots of times when I am afraid.  Shaking in my boots, mouth-full-of-cotton afraid.  And I'm ok with that.  I bring my fear, without shame, without guilt, and without fear of reproach to my Lord.  And I've discovered that the more honest I've been about my fear, the more courageous and bold in my walk with Jesus I've become, the more I have learned to trust deeply, to love passionately, to move forward with determination.

I can take risks.  I can do hard things.  I can go where he asks me to go, do what he asks me to do, face what he asks me to face.
Because I no longer fear fear.
I just feel it and move on.
And that's ok.

Touching the Heart

Do you recognise the painting?  It's part of the Sistine Chapel, from the creation scene where God reaches from on high and touches Adam.  I love this painting.  I love what it represents.  Michelangelo said, "To touch can be to give life."  And he is right.

Touch tells me that I'm not alone.  It tells me that you see me.  It tells me that you care.  It tells me that you love me.  You can talk until you're blue in the face, and your words may be nice and loving and encouraging, and I like to hear them, but they fall on my ears and they enter my head, and that's about as far as they go.  You can shower me with gifts, but gifts can be given with strings attached.  You can invite me out to dinner, hang out with me, and talk for hours, and all those things are lovely and lovely and I appreciate them, I really do.  I know you love me.  I know you care.

But sometimes, what I really want, all I really want, is for you to reach out your hand and pat me on the back, give me a hug, punch me on the shoulder (gently, of course), somehow, somehow make contact.  Sometimes, what I want, more than anything, is to be able to do that for you and know you're not going to misunderstand or think me weird.  Because to touch can be to give life.

But we in North America, and especially in our wi-fi world of data plans and cell phones, are an incredibly low-touch society.  We just don't.  We think it's weird.  Or wrong.  It's culturally unacceptable.  We barely want to shake hands in church, lest we pick up germs.  And really, I'm not interested in hugging strangers or going around touching or being touched by random people I don't know or aren't good friends with.  Touch can give life, but it can also bring death and destruction.  I know what unsafe touch feels like.  I used to fear and hate touch.  Sometimes I still do.  I'm not a touchy-feely sort of person who gets hands-on with everyone, nor do I want to.  But I have learned how much I need it.

Don't get me wrong.  It's not like I don't have friends or that I think I'm unloved.  I have fantastic friends, and I know beyond any doubt that I am deeply loved.  When I am with my friends, we hug.  But even great friends, apart from an initial greeting, might touch each other only once or twice over the course of hours spent together.  (In South American countries, that could be well over 150 times.)  Even great friends generally don't do much touching.  There are days (and occasionally even weeks, depending on the circumstances) that can go by when there is no physical human contact.  And that hurts inside.

I try to settle for this:

"I'm sending you a hug."

Or this:

((hug))

Sometimes that's about as good as it gets.  It's as close to touch as I get.  But it's not touch, and sometimes it makes me feel drier than ever.

There are times when I wish I could feel Jesus.  I don't mean that I wish I could sense his presence, but that I wish I could really feel him.  I wish he could pat me on the back.  I wish he could put his arms around me and hug me.  I wish he could hold me when I'm crying.  I wish he could take my face in his hands and look me in the eye and tell me it was going to be ok.  I wish I could feel him.  I know that I know that I know that if he was here (or I was there) he would wrap his arms around me and it would be the most wonderful thing.  His touch would be life.  I know he would touch me.

But he's not here, at least not in flesh-and-blood.

And I'm not sure what it's supposed to look like.  I know that there are lots of people who are perfectly ok with hands-off.  I respect that.  I'm not likely to singlehandedly change a culture.  I'm not even sure that it's not my problem, that I'm not the one who's just a little weird (although I surely hope not, because I'm writing about it in a public forum.)  Mostly, I think it just is what it is, and I have to accept it and be ok regardless.  I know that I am loved.  And when feelings fight with fact, fact must always trump.

So I settle for petting the dog.  I know it's ok to pet the dog.

She comes and lays her head in my lap, and I pet her.  She shoves her nose under my arm and snuffles in my pockets, and I pet her.  She comes up to me when I come home and she leans up against me and I pet her and hug her, and it all goes straight past my head into my heart.

Which is sad and ironic, in a way.  My head knows that my dog can't truly love me.  She is, after all, just a dog, and not a human being.  But my heart tells me she does.  And my head knows that my friends and family, and especially my Saviour do love me, deeply, profoundly, unconditionally.  I know that they love me.  I know that I am not alone.

But sometimes my heart feels too dry to feel it.

What brought this all on, you ask?  Good question.  My dog is sick.  And, for the last couple of days, I've been contemplating the possibility that she might not make it.  That she might not be there to put her head in my lap, to nudge my arm, or lean against me when I come home.  That she might not be there for me to pet and hug when my heart is aching, just to feel there's another living, breathing being here.  I can hardly think about it without tears.  I don't know it for sure.  She might be ok.  I keep praying she will be ok.  But it's made me think about why it would be so hard if she was gone.  I finally realised, I would miss her physical presence.  I would miss her touch.

To touch can be to give life.  Even if it's just a dog.

Without touch?

Tears.

And if you're out there and reading this?  Please don't send ((hugs)).

Just pray for my dog.

Thirsty

I read Psalm 42 a day or two ago.

"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 

When can I go and meet with God?"

Then this morning, I read Psalm 143.

"I spread out my hands to you; 

my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. 

Answer me quickly, O LORD; my spirit fails."

I've read these words many times, but I wonder sometimes if I have read over them. Yeah, yeah, I know what they say, and my eyes jump.  ♫As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul panteth after theeeee!  I want you more than any other, so much more than anything . . . .  ♫ I can even sing it (in at least two different versions), but do I know it?  Do I really know it?

Thirst.

There is a desperation to thirst.  Hunger is terribly unpleasant, but there is a desperation to thirst.  We can go for 30-40 days without food (and more, for most of us in North America who are carrying at least a two-week supply of food around our middles), but we can only go for three days without water.

Thirst is all-consuming.  When you're hungry, you can kind of put the hunger to the back of your mind for a while, but when you're thirsty, it's all you can think about.  And the longer you go without water, the more desperate you get.  (I'm getting thirsty just writing about being thirsty.)  I haven't been really thirsty very often, but I've been thirsty enough that even lake water that I know probably contains bacteria and parasites begins to look pretty darn good, and the trickling sound of water running over rocks in that nearby stream drives me almost to distraction.  I begin to think, Surely one mouthful won't make me sick.  I could just put the cold water in my mouth and swish it around, and spit it back out.  Just think how good it would feel just to have that cold water in my mouth.  I have to admit, I've taken the risk once or twice in my life and dipped my hand in the stream.

Because thirst cannot be denied or ignored.  Hunger is a nagging emptiness, but thirst is intolerable and demanding.

And I wonder, Have I ever really felt that desperate for God?  Hungry for God, yes.  A sort of gnawing emptiness in the pit of my belly, yes.  But thirsty?  Desperate for him?  So longing for His presence that I feel like I can't wait one more second, let alone a minute or an hour?

That kind of desperation frightens me.  Desperate people do stupid things.  Shipwrecked people, in desperation, drink ocean water that kills them.  People who don't have access to clean water drink anything and end up with a gutful of parasitic infection that causes such severe diarrhoea that they die of dehydration anyway.  How do I know that I'm not going to do something spiritually stupid and start drinking from cisterns of my own making rather than from the Water of Life?  I've seen people do it, swallow down any theology or theory that seems to slake a thirst, only to discover that the water is bitter and rots their bones, or, even worse, never discover it, and die a slow death drinking deadly water.  I get frightened of that kind of desperation.  Yet that kind of unshakeable thirst is what the psalmist described.

Because this world is a desert.  It sucks the life out of you, sometimes all at once, like being dropped in Death Valley, sometimes bit by bit, like a prolonged drought in a land that is normally quite green.  Sometimes you end up dry without even really realising it until the thirst awakes with a roar.

The world is a desert, and I'm beginning to feel how dry I am.  I am thirsty.   Very thirsty.  "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for you, like a parched land thirsts" for those drops of life-giving rain.  I'm not reading over those words right now.  They are resonating with me.  "My soul thirsts for God, for the Living God."  I'm beginning to feel that kind of desperation.  I don't want puddles and pools of stagnant water.  I want the Living God.  I'm thirsty -- thirsty for him.

So I'm praying. 

"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? 

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God."

"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. 

Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul."

I'm praying he will satisfy my thirst.  I'm praying he will lead me to streams of living water and give me the wisdom to avoid the polluted waters of my own cisterns.  I'm praying for rain.  And I trust he will answer. 

"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me."

All that water sounds like heaven to a thirsty soul.