Our Response to Fear

What is your biggest fear? My biggest fear is being buried alive. I mean, just imagine waking up in a coffin, six feet under the ground, with no hope whatsoever of escaping, knowing that it would just be a matter of time before you breath your last breath. We all have things in our lives that scare us. For example, like 90% of teenage girls are scared of spiders (sarcasm, yet I wouldn’t be surprised if that was true), yet other people such as myself aren’t scared of spiders. Yeah, spiders, snakes, and creepy old guys are pretty freaky, but are these things worth worrying about? No they’re not, in fact, it’s not just these inconsequential things that we aren’t to fear, it’s anything. 2 Timothy 1:7 states, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (ESV). Because I am a worrier, this is one of the Bible verses that I find myself quoting in my head almost everyday. I love it, because not only does it calm me, but it also motivates me to focus on how to move past my anxiety. As I was looking through a website, looking for more passages related to fear, I noticed something that I don’t think I’ve noticed before: how often the words “do not worry...” and “do not be anxious...” came up. In the Bible, when something is stated multiple times, it is typically something more important, repeated for emphasis. It is no coincidence that those phrases are repeated. Think of fear this way: if we have the God of the universe, who created our enemies/things that produce fear on our side, than how could we choose to fear something so insignificant to the big picture? Why is death one of the biggest fears? Our lives are short, (James 4:14) so why do we worry about death if we know it is coming anyway. We instead, should be excited to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and to spend eternity with our Savior, rather than grasping tightly to our short sinful lives.

-Jack Hilsher

Joshua 1:9 ESV

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”