When You Stop Fearing, Fear Loses its Grip

In authoritarian states  people are ruled by fear. You’re told there is a king and if you challenge the king, you’ll die. And since people like to live in peace and stay alive,  they shut up about the king until it becomes unbearable.

As they say, we will only change when the pain of status quo is greater than the pain of change.

When people have had enough and decide they’re not afraid anymore, revolutions happen. Thousands upon thousands on the Tahrir square demonstrating. People taking up arms in Libya. Christians in Algeria saying, fine if you want to imprison us, build a bigger prison.

They refuse to be ruled by fear and fear loses its grip. Just like that.

The Bible says fear not for every day of the year. The only good fear the good book talks about is the fear of God. For Christians you could define fear Biblically:  fearing people more than fearing God. When we see the people and circumstances around us as greater than God, we’re in distress. But when the tables are turned and we see a good God absolutely in charge, fear is expelled. We’re more afraid of Him than of others. It is liberating to know that ultimately, whatever happens God knows what he is doing and nothing, no thing, can happen without him seeing it.

Life’s Not Meant to Be Guarded But Lived

We try to live safe. We try not to get hurt. We avoid making mistakes.

Yet when three men were given talents, the one who dug his talents into the ground was rebuked.  He was the one who thought he was making the best decision by protecting what he was given. He ended up being the fool. The other two who took risks and invested their talents to some degree were congratulated.

Jesus didn’t stay at home and marvel at all the power he had. Instead he went and spent it all. For us. If God does that, what does it say to us?

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
— Hunter S. Thompson