The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself…and things that go ‘bump’ in the night.

What did FDR know about it anyway?  “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  Yeah, right.  Try telling that to a little boy growing up in South Dakota, far away from the wilds of Africa, but who still thought it necessary to pull his covers up around him (on the top bunk no less) so that tigers and lions couldn’t grab them and crawl up in his bed to eat him.  Thinking back, I learned at least two things about fear pretty early on.  First, it preys on our imagination, not of what is but what could be.  And secondly, it must be managed or it can control us.

As a young lad, I had a vivid imagination.  My mom used to say I’d have an ulcer by 15, because I was a worrier.  Two of my biggest fears were (don’t laugh) people with handicaps and wild animals.  As a toddler, I was traumatized by a young deaf man who would come to our house and could only communicate with guttural sounds and gestures.  I found him frightening.  Later in my early elementary school years, I found a man with no legs tipped over in his wheelchair near my home.  I ran in the house to get help, but couldn’t keep from wondering if he could hurt me if I got close to him.  Still another memory involved an usher in our church who (I kid you not) had a hook in place of an amputated hand, and when I went to put in my offering, he clamped the plate with this frightening appendage. 

My second fear—that of jungle animals—came from our visiting an exhibit at the St Louis zoo.  I remember locking eyes with a famous gorilla named Bushman who had died and been stuffed for all the world to see (and fear!).  These two destabilizing fears—handicapped people and jungle animals—finally teamed up in my most vivid nightmare as a child.  In the dream, I was on my backyard swing being pushed by my grandmother when what should appear out of the bushes behind me but a one-legged gorilla with a peg leg?!  I froze in terror, and even though my grandmother repeatedly yelled for me to run, I couldn’t move.  Only waking from the dream saved me from some horrific conclusion.

I’m sure many of you are shaking your heads and saying, “well this explains a lot.”  But as absurd as it all seems to me (and you) now, I still recall how real all these fears were to me then and how firm was their grip on me throughout my childhood.  Because left unchallenged, that’s how fear works.  Whether it’s the threat of Ebola, ISIS, a fluctuating stock market, or the barrage of bad news coming at us from every angle, you and I are tempted throughout our life to be anxious about things…many things.  The fact is, most of these things will never happen to us or to our loved ones.  They dwell in the realm of what could be or perhaps what has happened to others, but will, in fact, never touch us.  When tempted to camp out in these “mind” fields, we would do better to meditate on God’s word and engage in some rational Christian thinking.  The psalmist describes the mental gymnastics like this:

The LORD is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid?

The LORD is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?

 Though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will not be afraid. 

Even if I am attacked, I will remain confident.

What I did as a child in moments of fear was to magnify the object of dread and minimize the One who could deliver me (Psalm 34:4).  It was only after growing in my confidence in the Lord that I could see fear for what it really is…unfaith. Paul writes “God has not given us a spirit of fear” and “be anxious for nothing.” Christians are to acknowledge fear and then confess it:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

It’s a bit like temptation.  A thought in the mind is not in and of itself sin.  It’s where we let that thought take us…to an obsession, an action, a habit, eventually to an addiction.  But even Jesus was tempted, perhaps even to be afraid at times.  In asking God to examine our anxious thoughts, we are praying that our thought life would not offend God.  Even our anxious thoughts.  The remedy?  Worship.  And better yet, corporate worship, where others can encourage us and buoy us with their faith.  Psalm 34 invites us:                                                                                                                                                          

Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together. 

 I sought the Lord and He answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. 

Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

Speaking as your worship pastor and choir director, my face will be covered with a lot less shame if you keep these admissions about my childhood on the “down low.”  Besides, I totally don’t need to sleep on the top bunk anymore.                                      

tad