I grew up on a small farm in rural Canada. I remember one spring day, I was maybe 12 or 13 years old, driving a tractor out on the back forty, I believe we had just finished putting in the seed, and I was tasked with harrowing it in. In this part of the country it was not unusual to occasionally encounter wildlife that had been temporarily displaced by our agricultural activity. On this day, I noticed a young rabbit desperately trying to evade my approaching tractor, but in his fear, he was running in the same direction I was traveling. It soon became evident that the poor little guy was losing ground and that if I proceeded on course the result would not be pretty. Now at that stage in my young life, I was not the kind of person that would purposely drive over a frightened, helpless forest creature if I could help it. I was also young and curious, and interested in getting a closer look at my furry little forest friend, so when I got close enough, I stopped my rig and climbed off the tractor to approach the little bunny who had now also stopped running and was attempting, what appeared to be the, “if I sit real still maybe he won’t see me” pose. I approached him slowly and quietly, trying to be as unimposing as is possible, expecting the rabbit to bolt at any moment. It never did. To my surprise, and misguided delight, he just sat there, frozen in fear. Had I known then what I know now about rabbits, I would have just left him there and tried to carefully navigate my machinery around him, but at that time I was just a curious teenager, trying to be helpful, so I picked him up at took him for a ride to the end of the field on my tractor, and stopping to deposit him in the deep grass on the edge of the field. Whether he went on to live, and tell tales of his adventures to his grand bunnies, or whether he died of fright and/or became a snack for the next passing fox, I will never know. What I did learn from the experience is that fear apparently has the capacity to paralyze a young rabbit.
I have since learned that humans have a similar tendency. We too, can become paralyzed by fear to the point where do and say things that would otherwise seem insanely irrational! Fear causes the body to release adrenaline, which triggers our fight or flight response. We become significantly stronger under the influence of adrenaline, enabling us to run faster, and/or fight more ferociously. It is an instinctive survival response that over-rides our cognitive reasoning, designed to help us live to see another day. If you have ever encountered a spider web with you face as you enter a dark creepy basement, you may have an idea of what it feels like. For some reason, most living creatures have been designed to survive. Interestingly, humans are the only creatures who seem to be able to cognitively control this instinct to some extent if we train ourselves to do so in advance. In order to overcome our fear, it is helpful to understand what fear is, why we feel afraid, and how to minimize our fear whenever possible.
- What is fear?
Webster defines fear as “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger”. I’m sure you may have felt it…when you feel that spider web hit your face, yourheart rate increases, you feel a burst of adrenaline that causes your stomach to flutter, you catch a breath and hold it to increase your ability to hear as you momentarily freeze, and then you either bolt back out of the basement, or you launch into a most intense aerobic dance, flailing your arms, contorting your body in ways you didn’t know were possible until your brain finally kicks in and you begin to think…or hit your head on a beam and pass out.
Fear is an emotional response. It is rarely rational. I say it is rarely rational, because most of the fear we feel, is not so much a result of real danger as it is the result of a perceived threat…like when someone tells you “I have Covid-19”. It is a threat that may , but most likely will not have dire consequences. - Why do I feel afraid?
We feel afraid when we perceive that we may, “lose something important to us”. While there may be a myriad of things that we fear losing, I would suggest the loss of our life is ultimately the greatest, and possibly at the root of all our fear. Perhaps you have heard it said, “nothing is more dangerous than a person with nothing to lose”. Why does that make a person dangerous? Could it be that the reason we consider such a person dangerous is that most of what we call civil behavior is governed by fear? And, if a person is no longer governed by fear, it makes them unpredictable and uncontrollable, and according to our “rules of civil behavior” that makes them dangerous.
Let’s go a little deeper on this. Think about why we obey certain laws, but seem to ignore other ones. For example: most of us are pretty faithful at stopping for a red light, but think nothing of driving 5 or 10 clicks over the speed limit. Why? I suspect it is because we have learned that the chances of getting a ticket or dying in a crash are significantly higher when running a red light than by exceeding the speed limit by a few clicks. Could it be that for most of us, our fear of losing our life, or some of our money to a ticket, is what motivates us to “not break the law” in this case? This prompts another question. Is fear the best motivation for keeping the law? Or might there be a better motivation? I would agree that fear is an effective motivator, and would further suggest that it is employed as a motivator most often because it appears to be the shortest, easiest route to the desired outcome. When people are sufficiently afraid, they tend to do as they are told without questioning why they should do it. When people are sufficiently afraid, they are easier for those in authority to control. Unfortunately, while that may result everyone being compliant, it rarely results in everyone being content. When people fear their leadership, they comply with rules out of fear the way prison inmates comply with the rules of the prison guards, but the fear goes both ways, because the guards also know that if given the opportunity those prisoners would kill the guards.
So let me suggest a better way, a more effective way not only motivates people to “keep the law”, but to give them a desire obey not because they are afraid, but because they love and respect those in authority over them. - Is it possible to not be afraid?
The website powerthesaurus.org lists 1185 antonyms for the word “fear” and in my opinion misses, the most accurate one. We think of things like courage, strength and boldness as opposites of fear, and to some extent these are descriptive of fearlessness, but the one word that I believe is the most accurate antonym to fear is the one characteristic that is foundational to demonstrations of courage, strength and boldness, and that word is love. Love is most often thought of as the opposite of hate, or some might suggest that apathy is even less loving than hate, because when we hate, we still have some sort of feeling, but when we just don’t care, there is no feeling at all? The reason I would suggest love as the antonym for fear, is because I believe that “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts our all fear“.
So, how is it possible to not be afraid? It is possible, to the degree that we are able to experience and live in love. Not love in the romantic sense, or in the twisted, sexualized way much of the world chooses to understand it, but love as it was created to be. Whether you believe the Jesus of the Bible to be the Son of God and the risen, living Savior of the world, or just a good teacher who lived a long time ago, he is the one who defined love this way: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Perhaps the best example of love overpowering fear, is the example Jesus gave us in his response to the Jewish and Roman authorities as he was beaten and interrogated prior to his crucifixion. He was literally looking death in the face, knowing he was going to be killed in a most humiliating and painful fashion, yet never once do we find any record of him demonstrating signs of fear or anger toward those who were responsible for his murder. There is a moment when he is praying in the garden prior to his arrest, where he shows signs of anguish, he asks God to “if possible, take this cup away” – meaning I really don’t want to do this, but immediately adds, “but I want your will, not mine”. So even in that situation we are not given the sense that he is “afraid”.
By his willingness to face death without fear, Jesus conquered death, and stripped it of its power, and I believe, that it is possible, by the power and strength of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to his followers, for us to do the same. As followers of Jesus, we can confidently look death in the face and say, if it is God’s will at this time for you to take me, I’m okay with that, because I trust God with my life. However, if it is not God’s will at this moment, you should know that you are powerless to take me, because my life is in His hands, not yours. So you see, if I consider myself to be “Crucified with Christ” as Paul cryptically puts it in his letter to the church in Galatia, I am already dead to the world and to myself, and the life I live, is empowered entirely by the life and love of Jesus in me. I therefore, have nothing to lose, and thereby become dangerous to those who operate by the principles of fear because fear has no effect on me.
The world has operated primarily by fear motivation since about Genesis chapter 3 when Adam and Eve decided they wanted to try being “like God” by tasting the forbidden fruit, but even at that point, God had a plan that would ultimately restore what was lost through what Jesus did when he chose to die for us. All the evils of the world from that time to the present, are a result of humans responding to their surroundings in fear rather than in love. All wars, all conflict, all murders, thefts, and abuse is the result of people reacting in fear of losing something. I have always said, the most effective theft prevention a person can have, is not to own anything anyone else wants. This love over fear principle is similar. If the one thing I hold most dear is something no one can take away, I have nothing I can lose. Jim Elliot was a missionary who, along with four other men, lost his life attempting to bring the gospel to the Auca Indians in the Ecuadorian jungle in 1952. One of the statements he made prior to his death in response to those who tried to talk him out of this potentially fatal mission was, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose”.
If our main focus and mission is the preservation of our life, we have chosen a mission that is guaranteed to fail! To my knowledge, aside from Enoch and Elijah every person to walk on this planet has died. We can eat healthy, exercise regularly, and try every type of longevity snake oil we can find on the internet, but in the end, our bodies wear out and our heart stops beating, and we die. That is a reality with which me must learn to live. Some of us die sooner, some die later, some die slowly, some die instantly, but death is one event that we can, and should count on with certainty. I’m not suggesting we should be fixated on death…the whole point of this post is that death is not something we need to be afraid of! It is as natural a part of life as living is, and the sooner we overcome our fear of death, the sooner we can begin to really live. Living free of fear is only possible when we choose to live in the love that casts out all fear. Living in the love that casts out all fear, not only frees us from the fear of what comes after this life is over, but it changes the way we live the life we have now.
Imagine a world where we could choose to obey those in authority over us, not out of fear, but because we know with certainty that they would lay their life down for us. A world where we would willing to do the same for anyone else. In such a world there is no room for things such as selfishness or greed – both of which are fear motivated.
It is hard for us to imagine a fear free world because to do so requires us to turn all the values the world has taught us on their head, but think about…which world would you rather live in? We may not be able to change the way our family or friends and neighbors choose to live, but what is stopping you from living a love motivated life right now? Imagine how it might change your perspective on the world if you did.