Fear or Faith?

During the times of the great persecutions against the early church, Felicitas, a pregnant Carthaginian slave woman, lay in prison. Refusing to recant her faith, she was condemned to be thrown to the beasts in the arena. The night before her martyrdom, she gave birth. As she screamed in pain during her labor, her jailors mocked and tormented her. They asked how, if she couldn't stand the pains of childbirth, would she ever be able to face the beasts in the arena the next day? She replied: "Now I suffer what I suffer; then another will be in me who will suffer for me, as I shall suffer for him." Her reply points to her understanding of the nature and love of God. They reflect the words of Moses to Joshua in Deut 31 as Israel was about to enter the Promised Land. "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you . . . . The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Felicitas fully believed that God was with her and would not abandon her as she faced death the following day.

Fear! The word paralyzes us. We are afraid of being laughed at for our faith. We are afraid of being ostracized. We are afraid of being different. We are afraid that things are out of control. There is much apprehension in the world today – terrorism, the economy, high unemployment, etc. that can cause us to fear. The world wants us to be afraid. It wants us to look to it for solutions and comfort instead of to God. It desires that we look to its governments as our savior instead of God. It expects us to look to it in time of crisis. It wants us to forget that God is with us, and thus to be afraid. It wants us to conform to its values instead of to God's values. With its constant onslaught against us we can easily lose sight of the fact that God is really with us.

Fear implies a lack of trust in God’s ability. We doubt we have the strength to provide the answers to the problems we are facing. We aren’t sure where to turn. We can even begin to doubt that God can answer. But God wants us to have total faith in him. He wants us to believe that no matter what the outcomes of the situations facing us in life, he is trustworthy. We can count on him to provide for us in times of crisis, even when things don’t turn out quite like we might wish.

Joshua, confident in the strength of God's promise, led the people of Israel into the Promised Land. Felicitas, grasping one of the central truths of Christianity, stood firm in her faith as she faced death in the arena. Martin Luther made his well known statement "Here I stand" based upon his conviction that God was with him when he was asked to recant his beliefs. Each knew that the God who loves us so much that He sent his only Son into the world to save us by his death will never forsake us. He will always be with us as he leads us through every trial on the way to glory. How strong is your faith? Is it as strong as that of Felicitas?

Words of the Father

The Russian aviator and inventor of the helicopter, Igor Sikorsky, once reflected on a conversation he had had with one of his teachers, and noted its application to our spiritual lives. Recalling the conversation Sikorsky wrote:

“An elderly and well respected teacher in the naval academy where I was studying once asked me whether I had read the books written by my father, and he added with great emphasis that a son must be interested in the creative work of his father. This wise suggestion is, I believe, directly applicable to the case of a religious person who considers the Creator of the Universe to be his Heavenly Father.”

Sikorsky goes on to ask what we would think of the children of great artists, authors or inventors who totally disregarded the work of their famous parent. He concludes that we would likely not think very highly of them. Sikorsky implies that as sons of God we should take great interest in the work of our Father in Heaven. As God’s children, we should seek to discover to know as much about him as possible. We should avidly study the Bible. It is both his instruction manual for life here on earth as well as the place we learn most about him.

Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case in our world today. Several studies have shown that many Christians have minimal knowledge of the Bible. A study by the Barna research organization noted that only four percent of Christians are truly living a Christian worldview. Other studies point to the fact that many young adults, having spent their entire childhood attending Sunday School, have an extremely limited understanding of the Bible. Others have suggested that many Christians have a shallow faith which is a mile wide but only an inch deep. We live our lives as though the wisdom expressed by Sikorsky’s teacher has no value for us at all. We have a limited knowledge of God because we have never really sought to understand his character as described in his Word. We haven’t taken the time of made the effort to really get to know him.

Yet God greatly desires that we would have a deep, intimate relationship with him. He desires that we hide his word within our hearts. The Psalmist, deeply aware of God’s aversion to sin, says we should hide his word in our hearts in order to avoid sin. Just as an earthly father would be saddened that his children had no interest in his creative works, so also is God saddened by our lack of interest in really knowing him. Because of his great love for us, he sent his son to this earth to accomplish the purpose of bringing us back into relationship with him. Yet too many times we act as though this means little to us. We can live as though Sunday mornings at church is enough for us. We coast along, never putting forth the effort it might take to get to know God on a deeper level. We often appear to have little interest in his works.

To what extent do we seek to learn of the creative works of our Father in Heaven? How much do we seek to know and understand what he has said in his Word? How well do we know his thoughts and actions? Are we willing to put forth the effort to get to know him? The answer to these questions may tell us a lot about our relationship with God.

Second Hand Witnessing

In the nineteen sixties, Joseph Bayly wrote a book entitled The Gospel Blimp which was later turned into a Christian movie. The story focused upon two neighbors, members of the same church. One of the men was always seeking ways to witness about Christ. All of his attempts utilized second hand methods, culminating with renting a blimp to pass over the city and drop tracts. He never developed any relationships with his non Christian neighbors. His next door neighbor, on the other hand, developed relationships with the non Christian families in their neighborhood, occasionally even skipping church to be with them. When a crisis hit one of these families, it was only the latter neighbor who came to their aid and was instrumental in introducing them to Christ.

Holly Vicente Robaina in her blog “Walk with Life” describes a night when she and her husband had dinner at a local café. A man at a nearby table was a boisterous Christian. During their dinner, he was constantly praising Jesus for this and that, talking about God’s blessing him, all in a loud voice that could be heard throughout the restaurant. Later that evening her husband, who is not a Christian, remarked: "Acting that way, did he actually think that I'd be interested in what he said? That I'd want to be like him?” Obviously, his answer was “No!” While the man was most likely trying to witness, the content of his words in their setting, was found to be distasteful. Holly reflected: Does he blare out his faith so he doesn't have to engage in a real conversation? Or does he truly believe someone might approach him and want to talk about Jesus? If so, his technique isn't working.”

Keith Green takes a similar view regarding all of the Christian clothing and billboards, bumper stickers and other Christian paraphernalia, concluding that they may just immunize people from the real gospel. He says “It pains me to see the beautiful truths of Scripture being plastered about like beer advertisements. Many think it is wise to “get the word out” in this way but, I believe that we are really just inoculating the world with bits and pieces of truth - giving them their “gospel shots”. (And we’re making it hard for them to “catch” the real thing!). People become numb to the truth when we splash our gaudy sayings in their eyes at every opportunity.” He wonders if those who use these tactics are seeking more the approval of other Christians than to truly witness. Like the man in the restaurant, these are forms of blaring out our faith without having to engage in real interaction with non Christians. All three of these accounts can be considered forms of second hand witnessing. Both have the danger of turning people away from being receptive to the gospel.

If these forms of second hand witnessing don’t work, what does? How can we be most effective in witnessing to our faith? By living transformed lives as Christ’s disciples. This is the best way. Just as Jesus was a magnet to those who were caught up in sin, so by living as Christ lived, we also can be a magnet, drawing others to him. The second man in the Gospel Blimp story was effective because he demonstrated love to his neighbor. The early Christians were described as those who turned the world upside down. How often are we viewed in the same way? What kind of witnessing are we engaged in – first or second hand?

Immunized Against Faith

One of the techniques used to produce vaccines utilizes weakened viruses. The virus is partially killed off so that it can’t fully attack us. We are then inoculated with this weakened virus. Our immune system is thus able to combat this counterfeit, weakened form. This allows our immune system to build up a resistance against the real virus. We are thus immunized against the disease.

While this approach works well against infectious diseases, it becomes a disaster when it is applied to our life of faith. How easy is it for us to accept a weakened form of faith in our daily lives? Much easier than we might expect! Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this cheap grace. It is a form that has very little impact on our lives. It can be very easy to live our day to day lives without thinking much about God and how He would have us live. The faith we exhibit during our attendance at church on Sunday, for instance, may have little impact on us the other six days of the week. Our Monday through Saturday lives would be much the same, whether God is dead or alive. It allows us to be religious without having a deep desire to know God. It can become easy to have the attitude that we are doing as much as everyone else in the church. We can think that by teaching Sunday School, leading Bible studies, or being on church committees, etc. it is enough. Cheap grace has become the heresy that has infected the church in our times.

But when we look at the demands of Jesus we see something totally different. Jesus calls us to radical obedience, a complete transformation as we give Him our total allegiance. He asks for a total commitment of our lives. He desires us to be completely centered on Him. He wants us to experience authentic Christianity twenty-four seven.

But all too often we give him less. We hold back areas of our lives. We prefer a weakened form of faith that doesn’t demand too much of us. We don’t want to give him lordship over our lives. We want to maintain some control. We are content to live with less. Our prayers may be something like “God, I will follow you, except if you ask me to ….” When we do this we immunize ourselves against authentic Christianity. We don’t really want to catch the real thing.

But Jesus calls us to be infected by him. He seeks to change our spiritual cellular DNA. He wants us to live incarnational lives. As others observe how we live our lives they should see Jesus. We are to live such that even non Christians will praise God as they observe our lives. They should see Christ in us. But this requires a willingness to commit ourselves to living authentic Christian lives, sold out to Jesus Christ. It requires living a life of holiness, constantly growing closer and closer to our Lord. It demands that we care for and serve others with a Christ-like compassion and love. This we cannot do if we have a weakened form of faith. If we have been immunized against true faith we cannot have much of an impact upon others. We cannot easily infect others if we have not been infected ourselves. We will only immunize them against authentic Christianity. Upon reflection, it raises an interesting question. Have I been immunized against the authentic Christian faith or have I caught the real thing?

Fear and Faith

Despair.com is a website containing a collection of demotivators. They are pithy statements which humorously look at many of the situations we face during our daily lives. On their website, fear is described in the following manner: “Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea.” It points out that fear is often related to risk. If we remain in safe territory we may not experience fear. When we branch out into the unknown we find ourselves facing uncertainty and apprehension. This can lead to fear, which can be very paralyzing. It keeps us “close to the shore” so to speak. It also keeps us from discovering new things. We can become afraid to try something new, or to make a mistake. Where would we be today if Columbus would have taken this attitude when he was sailing about the Mediterranean? He would have never headed out into the unknown and discovered America.

This description of fear could just as well be a description of faith. “Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know what faith is.” Walking in faith requires us to leave the shore. We have to be willing to face the terror of not knowing what is going to happen. Abraham left the shore when he departed from Ur for the land of Canaan. He had no idea where he was going. But he stepped out in faith, believing God. David left the shore as he picked up the five small stones before advancing to meet Goliath. He was willing to accept the risk that he could be killed. Peter stepped out of the boat, and for a brief moment walked on water until fear interrupted his journey. The book of Habakkuk has been described as a journey from fear to faith as Habakkuk wrestled with the perilous times in which he lived and God’s seeming inactivity. Each of these four men put fear behind them trusting that God was leading them in their journey of faith.

As these episodes illustrate, there is a close connection between fear and faith. Essentially they are the opposite sides of the same coin. Both involve stepping out into the unknown. They differ in regard to trust. Faith requires trust in God, trusting that he is leading. Fear, on the other hand, indicates the absence of trust. Whereas fear paralyzes, faith liberates. Fear closes in upon us. Faith opens up new possibilities.

Today we live in a world that is particularly susceptible to fear. We are facing many things which can give us cause to fear. The financial and economic crises have affected us all. Many people have lost their homes over the past few years. The threat of global terrorism is always on the horizon. Drug wars along our southern borders have escalated. Unemployment is reaching new levels. Cities and states are facing bankruptcy. It is uncertain whether or not the stimulus package will be able to bring us out of the economic doldrums. Life is becoming very unpredictable. We don’t know what is going to happen. There is much we can fear. Yet it is precisely at this point that God asks us to trust him. He asks us to trust that he is bigger than all of the problems that face our world today. He asks us to put out from the shore, trusting that he will provide. Are you still hovering about the shore, or have you put out into the deep?

What is Important?

The story is told of a Native American and a friend who were visiting New York City. During lunch hour they were walking down Broadway, with its cacophony of noise from people talking, the tread of their footsteps as they rapidly walked down the street, the roar of traffic whizzing by and the horns honking. Suddenly the Native American said “Listen. I hear a cricket”. His friend replied, “How can you hear a cricket above all this noise?” Insisting that he had heard a cricket chirping, he crossed the street to a planter, looked inside and found a cricket. His friend queried him again. “How on earth could you have heard a cricket? You couldn’t have heard anything as small and insignificant as that with all this noise!” Whereupon the Native American reached into his pocket, pulled out several coins and dropped them on the sidewalk. Immediately everyone within twenty feet stopped, turned and looked. Turning to his friend he said, “It all depends on what you consider to be important.”

It all depends on what we consider to be important! As we go through life we are faced with many demands on our time, our priorities, our faith and our money. Many times we often say what we consider to be important. It is easy to say that our church, our faith or our family is of utmost importance to us, yet we may often ignore them. We may say that the Bible is important to us, but never find time to read it. We may say that our family is important to us, while spending all of our time at work and never attending our children’s events. To what extent do we live up to what we say? Many of the passersby in the story above, rushing on their way to important meetings, luncheon engagements, etc. showed what was really important when they heard the coins clinking on the sidewalk. How often do we do the same? Our actions may belie our words. We may say one thing and do another.

When we do so we become hypocrites. We are no better than the Pharisees and Scribes of Jesus’ day. Their actual practices confirmed a much different picture than did their stated beliefs. While declaring their great faith, they sought as many loopholes as possible to avoid actually practicing it. Unfortunately, we can easily find ourselves living our lives much as they did.

But the story of hearing the cricket has another point as well. It is only when we are tuned to hear that we can actually hear. A group of mothers can be talking on a playground while their children play. Suddenly one of the mothers will state “My child is crying”. None of the other mothers heard the crying. But if it was their own child, they would have heard the cry. Their ear was tuned to the voice of their child. The ear of the Native American was tuned to hear the still small voice of the cricket over the noise, while the ear of his friend was not. We live in a world which has as much spiritual cacophony as the physical cacophony experienced on the streets of New York. The roar can be quite deafening. There are constant demands to pull us away from God. The secular culture in which we live is not tuned to hear spiritual things. We will hear the things that are truly important to us. Are our ears tuned to hear the still small voice of God above the din of life? Are you listening to his voice?

Flatland

In his fanciful book Flatland, Edwin Abbott describes a two dimensional world inhabited by triangles, squares and pentagons, etc. For flatlanders, there is no such concept as “up”. They live in and only know two dimensions. The sphere invades their two dimensional world, attempting to convince them of the gospel of the third dimension. Of course, being in their flat plane, all they see is the appearance of a point which expands into ever larger concentric circles until it recedes again to a point and disappears. Unable to convince the pentagon of the third dimension, the sphere finally shows him Lineland which has no width. The inhabitants of Lineland merely travel back and forth on their narrow line. The pentagon futilely attempts to convince the Linelander that there is width, to no avail. He is then shown Pointland, whose inhabitants bask in their pointdom, unable to comprehend either length or width. After finally being convinced of the existence of the third dimension, the pentagon is imprisoned for his heretical views. The sphere visits him in prison to comfort him. The pentagon says to him, “You showed me Pointland and Lineland. Although I knew there was both length and breadth, I couldn’t make them understand. Through this you convinced me of the third dimension. But what about the fourth and fifth dimensions?” To which the sphere replies “Nonsense!”

As humorous as this story is, it has a point. We have great difficulty comprehending things outside of our experience. In the rational world in which we live, we have difficulty understanding that we also live in a world which also has a spiritual dimension. The story of Elisha and his servant at Dothan (II Kings 6:15-17) illustrates the difficulty we face. When his servant fears for his life, Elisha prays for his eyes to be opened. He then sees horses and chariots surrounding Elisha, protecting them. It is easy for us to rationalize this story, saying that things like this occurred in Bible times, but don’t today. But they still do. A priest with whom I am acquainted was telling of an experience which happened to him. He was working among gangs. He was cornered by a gang of young men who were going to force him to take drugs. Suddenly the gang surrounding him melted away. At a later time he caught up with them and asked them why they left so suddenly. One of the gang members told him that there was a big guy up in the air above them, and he definitely was not happy. God had sent an angel to protect him from harm.

Like the pentagon in Flatland, we live in a world that contains more dimensions than we think. As St. Paul says, we are surrounded by heavenly principalities and powers. Just as Flatland was invaded by the sphere, preaching the gospel of the third dimension to the Flatlanders, so also our world was once invaded by one preaching the gospel of the spiritual dimension. Jesus came down to this world to show us who God is and bring us back into relationship with him. Just as the pentagon was persecuted for his views on the third dimension, so also are the followers of Jesus persecuted for their view of spiritual matters. Just as the majority of flatlanders had no concept of up, so most of the inhabitants of our world have little or no concept of the spiritual warfare in which we are engaged. Are you content to live in our three dimensional world, or do you see yourself living in the midst of a spiritual world?