I have received a couple requests for a more practical treatment of the topic of fear. So I decided to go ahead and write this post in that vein.
I know from my experiences of two effective ways to fight fear: to nurture a higher view of God and to face your fears. The second way is more obvious, so I will deal this it last. The first way is a less direct, but no less effective, defense against fear.
At the root of almost every fear is pride, viewing ourselves as somehow higher than God. This, having a higher view of God will make us less susceptible to fear. In his book Trusting God, Jerry Bridges discusses the triangle of God’s attributes: sovereignty, wisdom, and love. When we fear, we doubt one of these things in God, and when we doubt one of these things in God, we arrogantly think that we can do better than Him.
For example, when, in our fear, we doubt God’s sovereignty, we might say to ourselves, “God isn’t big enough to handle my problems; so I should just take matters into my own hands.” This is an attack from Satan, undermining our belief in God’s power. Or we might say, “God doesn’t really know what He’s doing; I do.” This calls into question God’s wisdom. When we say this to ourselves, our flesh tries to get us to make our own plan of events instead of accepting God’s plan. However, the attack that most commonly plagues me is one against God’s love for me: “God doesn’t really care about what’s best for me.” Now, obviously more than one of these attacks can happen at the same time, so it can be quite difficult to distinguish, but the basic principle still stands.
I’m a very fearful person. I struggle with fear of a lot of things, not just one or two. For example, I fear just about every kind of bug that God has created; the only one I can truthfully say I don’t have some sort of aversion to is the black ant. This fear grips me particularly in summertime, making it very difficult for me to enjoy myself outside (that’s why fall and winter are my favorite months :-)). I’m also afraid of heights. This is common, but it contributes to my inability and unwillingness to use swings.
However, my fears are not limited to tangible reality. I live in almost constant fear of what others think about me, or any other possible discomfort. My fears have a wide range of consequences, often hindering my ability to glorify God. This should not be the case. Our fears ought to give us an even greater opportunity to glorify God, by doing the things we fear despite being afraid.
The famous John Piper of Desiring God Ministries wrote an excellent article about fear on November 21, 2001. In writing this post, I have drawn extensively from Piper’s article, and I would encourage you to read it and ponder it yourself. Piper presents thirteen reasons why true believers in Christ need not be afraid, but I saw two main themes that I am going to share with you. They deal with fear of men and fear of the abstract.
We live in a fallen world, and in this fallen world their is mistrust of one another. Along with that mistrust, we get fear. Today we are particularly aware of the fear of men, as a war is waged against terrorists. We fear what other can do to us, but as Christians we have no need to fear others.
Last week, I went down to the Dominican Republic on a missions trip. I went with an organization called Meeting God in Missions (www.meetinggodinmissions.com). I’ve gone down twice before (each trip is in January), and each time has been a real blessing. The “leader” of MGM is Jim McDonald - a retired basketball coach and an amazing preacher. Each day of the trip he teaches on something new and practical, and he helps all of the people on the trip to really understand what he talks about. He really gets into the lessons, and he is known for certain “quotes” that he says all the time.
One of his famous sayings is, “Don’t read your Bible…study it.” He pauses for a while in the middle of it, and everyone laughs. But it has such a true lesson - you and I shouldn’t be simply reading our Bibles, we should be studying them.
But what does it mean to study the Bible? How do you study the Bible? In this post, I hope to outline one of many popular ways that people study the Bible, and how you can do it too.