Fear

“Never be afraid…
An amateur built the Ark and professionals built the Titanic.”

I’ve had this overwhelming fear of heights. I hate them. I have had many experiences when I’ve been on what seemed an “unsturdy bridge” in my mind, while hovering a hundred or so feet in the air. Or it may be near the railing of a level (above three floors) that makes my butt-hole pucker. And the crazy thing is is that I only fear heights when I’m standing on something that is man-made. Bridges. Near railings of a level higher than the second floor, or maybe the third, depending on my fear level for the day. And I can’t forget ropes. I don’t know why I climb to a great height on a rope and then forget that I’m some sixty feet in the air then freak out. My fear problem has never been a threat when I’m hiking. The trail I’m on may come to a cliff and I will look over it, carefully, but still I’m not terrified as much as I would be standing on a bridge at the same height. I’m a very adventurous guy, so I’m always hiking, climbing, and camping. I’ve never been subject to my fear of heights when I was hiking. I guess what it all boils down to is that I trust God’s sturdy earth and rock underneath my feet versus a man-made walking bridge of rope and wood. I mean, the Titanic sank, right? So whoever says the bridge isn’t going to break is an idiot.
I realized one day that I don’t have a fear of heights. What I have a fear of is the fall from a great height. I love heights. There are greater views of God’s earth from a higher altitude, and I love hiking to a peak and soaking in God’s glory with my eyes, body, and soul. And so, I understand now that what people really fear is really the deeper concept within their fears, just like mine. For example, some individuals don’t have a fear of elevators; they have a fear of the cable snapping, and while they are in the tin box, they’re afraid of the plummet to the bottom of the shaft to their death. Or they may fear the small area in an elevator, as if they are contained or trapped, but they don’t fear the elevator itself. Our fears are commonly misunderstood even by ourselves.
Fear itself is powerful. It has the power to stop us in our tracks, sometimes literally! Fear can bring so much torture to one person that it can paralyze them from moving. Also, fear can be the greatest exhilaration for his/her body. Some individuals feed off of fear. It becomes their excitement and adrenaline rush in whatever act that they are doing. I don’t think people that parachute from planes really enjoy the fall from 10,000 feet, as much as the endorphins that are being released into their body from the fear they are experiencing.
People of the Christian faith have really misinterpreted and misunderstood what it means to fear God. The beginning of my journey with God began with a pastor illustrating an easily disturbed God waiting to tear my life apart if I wasn’t obedient every second of my life. So, yeah, this is how I spent my Sundays in a Southern Baptist church for three years. And yes, we had hell fire and brimstones to keep the place warm in the winter. My pastor was presenting the congregation a God of supreme power that was willing to impair His creation because He had the power to do so. I would attend church every Sunday and have many questions about all of this God stuff, but I never opened my mouth to ask them because I was too terrified of God, and also the stupid looks from the person I was questioning. I came to know Christ because I was frightened that God would hurt me in some way if I didn’t accept Christ before it was too late. I now call my step into the faith “conversion by concusssion.” I was scared into
unconsciousness in order to follow God according to their rules. So, I’m not sure if I actually accepted Christ fully at that moment because I was unconscious. I hate that I was shown the faith in this manner, but now I’m joyful that I know that Christ is in my life but with a much different perspective of Whom God really is. I definitely do not wish for anyone to come to know Christ through this way, because I know now that my God is a God of infinite compassion, a God of Love, and a God that is so awesome beyond measures. So why do people still represent God as a Spirit to be feared as we fear things on earth?
As I said earlier, fearing God is one of the most misunderstood meanings of the Bible. When we hear the word fear, we think automatically of what we would say respectively to a seven year-old tricker treater at our door on Halloween: “Oh, you’re so scary! You’re making me tremble and afraid of your terrifying-looking face.” Scary. Tremble. Afraid. But the word fear in “fear God” or “fearing God” has a much different meaning. The Hebrew word for fear is yir’a, meaning reverence and obedience for God, and to hate all that is evil. There are instances in the Bible of fear as we fear a spider or in my case, heights, but this fear is correlated to fear of men and earthly terrors. I have failed to come across a verse that calls people of faith to fear God in trembling or in a terrified manner. I’m not exactly sure as to why pastors and churches continue to teach about a God Who we should fear for our life over, especially when our God is not a God of hatred but a God of love (1 John 4).
We have pastors teaching about this God Who is out to condemn us if we don’t obey Him, and this is a major problem for those who know God, because
they become paralyzed from fearing a God of terror. Trepidation is the word to define how we act when we are presented with terror or fear. Trepidation means trembling or hesitancy. If we are teaching generations to fear God with trembling, then how can we expect them to go out and preach His word when they are too afraid to move? How can this way of teaching further the kingdom of God if he/she is sitting still? Jesus in Matthew 28 commanded His disciples to “Go and make disciples of all the nations,” so how can a person be told to tremble before God and ‘go and make disciples’ at the same time? It’s impossible. It’s two different commands that are polar opposites. In the act of trembling, we are sitting still and immobile, and physically, it’s pretty hard to tremble while moving.
Fear, as we are to understand its true identity, is reverence. It is obedience. It is the hatred of all that is evil. When we fear God, we are positioning ourselves with God. I’m not saying that we are raising ourselves up to His majesty or above His own head, but rather, I’m illustrating that we are aligning ourselves with our Creator. Remember fear is also a hating and shunning of evil; therefore, we are aligning ourselves and seeing through God’s eyes.
I love this definition of alignment that I came across recently, and I believe it speaks to the alignment we long for with God: The process of adjusting parts so that they are in proper relative position. When we are aligning ourselves with God, we are adjusting parts so that they may be connected with God. Fearing God is a commandment given to us by many stewards and prophets of God, and also by God Himself; but in fearing God, we are called to be stewards, men and women of action to fear God. God reminds us that He placed fear into the hearts of his people, so that they may not turn from Him (Jeremiah 32:40), but also, it is a call for us, His people, to fear God (Ecc. 12:13). We must put effort in fearing God because so often His fear is forgotten and covered by our earthly worries and doubts.
Followers of Jesus can have a fear of God, which means they are scared to death of Him, and they can also fear God, which, like we said earlier, is a reverence for Him. When followers have a fear of God, but do not fear God, they’re stagnate in their faith, because they are afraid to act. They hear His voice, yet they can’t clearly determine what to do once they’ve heard it because they’re scared. When we are afraid to act, whether we don’t know if it is right or wrong, we become fixed and motionless. When followers of Christ have a fear of God, it reflects either a continuance of life full of sin, or that they have never been taught about the infinite compassion of God.
Also, some Christians often translate the phrase fear God as fear His wrath. For instance, my phobia of heights isn’t actually a fear of heights but rather a fear of falling from heights. It’s my misunderstanding of what I really fear, and like many Christians do, we translate fear God as fear His wrath. Again, we are being told to fear what we should not fear in the first place.
Misunderstanding fear has a great effect on our spiritual life. When we fear what we shouldn’t, then our souls become lethargic and concern free. When wholly, our souls were meant to be stirred and stirring in the world. We are to become energetic and enthusiastic for the expansion of God’s glory and also, God’s concerns should be our concerns as well.
There is a great quote that I have no clue who said it but it speaks of fear. It states, “What you fear is what you are subject to.” Well, what are your fears? Spiders? Dogs? Ghosts? Clowns? People? The color yellow? Whatever the fear may be, you are subject to them whether you choose to be or not. Whether I like it or not, I’m subject to falling from heights, and always will be because I’m not sure if I can overcome my fear. But more than my fear of falling, I fear God. Therefore, I am subject to Him, and I will always succumb to His being. And in 1 John 4:18, the Bible says that “there is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear.” The word love in this verse is God, because we are told in the verse preceding that “God is love” (v. 17). Once we learn from our hearts that we already fear God (Jer. 32:40), then we will no longer fear anything, not of this world or any other, because God casts out earthly fear from His perfect love. I mean, when we are subject to God, then who or what can frighten us, because we have an amazing God on our side, profiting the world, through us, with His abundance of love, passions, and even His hate of evil. Never be afraid, because an amateur built the Ark and professionals built the Titanic.