August 1, 2005

   Pastor Brett Blair in an article wrote, “In the story of creation found in the Book of Genesis, we read where Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit, something which had been specifically denied them.  Knowing that God is searching for them, they attempt to hide. It is a scene perhaps reminiscent of many of our childhoods when we had done something that we were not supposed to and we literally hid from our searching parents.  Finally God finds them, as we know that He will, for, after all, where can we go to hide from God? God asks them why they are hiding. Do you remember the response that Adam gave: “Because, I was afraid.”

   I think this very poignant story reminds us that fear is so basic to who we are as humans, it goes all the way back to the beginning of time.  To be human is to experience fear.  There seems to be no limit to our fears. In a Peanuts cartoon strip Charlie Brown goes to Lucy for a nickels worth of psychiatric help. She proceeds to pinpoint his particular fear.  Perhaps, she says, you have hypengyophobia, which is the fear of responsibility. Charlie Brown says no.  Well, perhaps you have ailurophobia, which is the fear of cats. No. Well, maybe you have climacophobia, which is the fear of staircases.  No.  Exasperated, Lucy says well, maybe you have pantophobia, which is the fear of everything.  Yes, says Charles, that is the one!

   Sometimes we feel like we are afraid of everything.  We are afraid of ourselves.  We are afraid of people.  We are afraid of the future.  We are afraid of the past.  We are afraid of life.  We are afraid of death.

   Every person, every Christian, must fight their own fears.  Even Paul, the sturdy Christian warrior, had to do so.  Paul had fallen flat on his face in Athens .  He did exactly what he intended not to do, and in his own eyes he had failed.  He wrote of his arrival in Corinth : “For when we came into Macedonia we had not rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings; within were fears.”
 
   The answer to the fears we face in our lives and in our faith is to trust God.  Faith trusts in the character of God and acts upon that trust.  When we struggle with our fears and our faith, we are struggling with our role in God’s greater purposes.  The Good News is that we can trust in God who has been revealed uniquely and specifically in Jesus Christ.  Our faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God gives us the foundation upon which to trust.  Our God is responsive, responsible, and gives us new life in the Kingdom.
 
   Trust in God.  Have faith in the purposes of God, and you will never be disappointed.

Grace and Peace,

Richard

07-22-05