Some days, I too, live in that prison of fear. It is the place where rational thinking has no home. It is the place of ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ ruling over sanity and reality. It is the home of the tyranny of the urgent lording over men’s trust in their creator. It is found in the days following December Seventh, November Twenty Second and September Eleventh. It is seen in the terrorized faces of a community in search of serial killers and monsters raping children. It is what causes sane rational secure adults to give away hard fought for freedoms. It is a personal prison of past trauma arising in uncontrollable reminders that life is not nearly as placid nor secure nor peaceful as we would hope it to be.
It is often referred to as a private hell. It is seen publicly when hope vanishes and despair reigns. There are places we do not go, events we avoid, even dates we remove from the calendar of our minds because they will show us the door of that prison cell. We do not enter into that cell willingly, but out of a certain controlled necessity beyond our conscious recognition. We may feel the need to have a tower of fear. For it is there, in that bondage, that we safely deny the existence of someone greater than ourselves. We think so much of ourselves that we are certain we are in control of the totality of our existence. We have determined that we alone are the masters of our destiny. We are accountable to no one else as supreme and fear none greater than me.
“Cogito ergo sum” is the classical Latin for “I think therefore I am” from Rene Descartes’ “Discourse on the Method” (1637). It would say that the evidence of my existence is proven by my thinking about it. While some would argue the finer points of his intent, fear exists for the same rational.
Fear is good when it warns, protects and defines some of the parameters of life. Fear is evil when it controls, enslaves or debilitates us through the experience of it. We subjected many American citizens to harsh cruelties during and after World War Two simply because of the fear associated with December Seventh. Likewise September Eleventh reminds of a reason to shrink in terror at the very image of certain people. It is a personal demon to those of us who have endured the horrors of war and are haunted with the possibility of having to be reminded of those events.
We fear dying, when dying is our release from fear. We fear pain, when pain reveals protection. We fear people, when we are commanded to love them. We fear embarrassment, ridicule and shame when they are often used to correct our flawed thinking and draw us closer to success. Debilitating, crippling, paralyzing fear causes our reality to morph into a mudslide of illegitimate controls depriving us of peace. Peace in the midst of storms is the plan of God to show others His care for them when they can’t find it in themselves. Fear says there is no peace. Faith declares that there is.
Personally I do not fear the knowledge of fear. Yet I despise its ability to control my emotions and my perceptions of my surroundings. Occasionally overcrowded venues or noisy events will trigger painful memories and responses which I wish were foreign. I am convinced that while others may have similar issues for a variety of reasons, no two prisons are alike. Still the fabrics of the cell bars are fear and ignorance. Fear binds in seemingly unbreakable bonds and ignorance locks the door and throws away the key.
My strength of life, of morality and of universal cause and effect is based upon the truth that there is a Creator God and I am not Him. He set a thought (we call it a plan) in motion and controls every aspect of it with His good pleasure. So when I fall victim to fear, I deny that He is ultimately in control. It is a choice that I make. It does not threaten God in the least to allow me that choice. Nor does it alter His existence one iota for me to choose either confidence or lunacy. What is affected is my cognizance of reality. Fear at that level dismisses reality. Although I may know that no one has the instruments or ability to do me physical harm, past events can be triggered to remind me it has happened before. If I entertain the possibility, I am lost to fear.
So back to the premise and application of Descartes’ essay; if I think about it, it is real. Or at least it is a part of the perception of reality that I accept. And if I perceive it as real then it can and does have a real impact on my existence. If I also think (and I do) that God has created all things for His good pleasure, then fear is intended for good. Just because I pervert it to my detriment does not change God nor His goodness. We have a saying that “God is good, all the time.” When we hear it we often reply “All the time, God is good”. The implication is that we acknowledge that life is sometimes unpleasant but God never is. So while fear has a positive purpose when properly experienced, it can be a weapon of mass destruction when it replaces reality.
Some fears we conquer. Others we find to coexist with our safe reality. I fear displeasing God. Yet if I read and understand my Bible correctly, I cannot do other than God already knows I will do. Since I love Him because He first loved me, and He changes not, I will always love Him and that pleases Him. Even when I collapse under the momentary affliction of fear, He loves me. He speaks gently to my soul and restores me with a peace that passes any human understanding. The same fear which seemed so dominate moments before becomes a trifling gnat in comparison. I am victorious in Him. A song writer put it this way: “Without Him I can do nothing. Without Him I’d be so lost”. His compassion, His powerful presence is all I need to rise from my failure to trust and walk confidently in His grace.
People who do not have a relationship with the God of the universe may well say they have conquered fear. In their life experience they have settled on controls that allow them to compartmentalize their anxieties and rest confidently in the moment. While I applaud their grasp of reality, I have but one question, “And then what?” After you have conquered fears, then what? If a man lives he shall surely die. And then what? And if you find that it is not simply the darkness of oblivion forever, then what? And if God is really as real as He claims to be, then what? And if Jesus is who He claimed and if He did what many testified of, then what? And if eternal life is what He said and eternal death is what He said, then what will you do with Jesus?
Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.