Living in Days of Fear

2 Timothy 2:7

We are living in days of rampant fear.

On April 26^th of this year (2009), teachers saw Michael Morrissey, an eighth-grader at Marshall Middle Schol, in Clovis, New Mexico, entering the school with a long tube wrapped in aluminum foil and a Tee-shirt.  When the teachers reported what they had seen, the police were called and the school went into “lock-down” mode, which meant students were locked in their rooms and no one was allowed to enter or leave the building.

With marksmen on the roof of the school, police began to unwrap the strange package.  What they  found was a large tortilla, filled with meat, cheese, lettuce, and guacamole.  Morrissey had brought the giant, thirty-inch burrito as part of an extra-credit project in which students were to create a product and develop an advertising plan to promote it.

The incident earned the youngster the nickname “Burrito Boy” and prompted the school’s principal to say, “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

As much as we might wish to accuse those school administrators of overreacting, we don’t want them taking chances with our children.

Let’s face it, since Oklahoma City, since Columbine, since 9/11 people have been frightened. 

But terrorists, psychopaths, and fanatics aren’t the only sources of our fear.  We’re fearful of an uncertain economy.  We’re fearful of what seems to be an increasing number of new diseases that can’t be touched by our medicines.

We’re fearful of growing older, fearful of losing our edge, fearful of failing, fearful to things we cannot even name…..

Paul’s young protégé Timothy knew fear.  His may have been the fear of failing as a minister, fear of ridicule, fear of the Roman authorities.  We don’t know.

In any case, Paul’s words remind him and us that a life permeated by fear is not what God intended for us.  “God,” he says, “has not given us a spirit of fear.”  The word could be translated “cowardice.”

Though these may be days of rampant fear, we don’t have to be bound by that spirit.

I

WE MAY FACE THESE DAYS

WITH COMPETENCE

It’s easy to panic when we feel unequal to the task.

It’s a problem we may face at any age.  Things like college, career change, marriage, parenthood, witnessing, retirement, teaching the children’s Sunday school class may make us fearful.  We approach the situation wit the sense that failure in inevitable, that success is not an option, that we won’t be able to do what needs to be done.

It’s a feeling which has caused some to say “no” to opportunities to serve God in the church and elsewhere.

We don’t have to succumb to that fear.

The word “power” implies more than just raw, untamed energy.  It means the capacity to accomplish what needs to be accomplished.

Timothy faced the task of leading the Ephesian church through some of the most difficult years in its history.  Aware of this, Paul used one word which told him, “With God’s help you can do it.”

Certainly we can apply this principle to doing the work of the church, but I believe it also lets us know that God will enable us to do what we fear is impossible to do, to face the challenge we never expected, never wanted.

II

WE CAN FACE THESE DAYS

WITH CONFIDENCE

Does it seem strange to include love in the list of resources for facing fear?

Some may fear that living for God will cost them the love of friends and family.

Some may fear that failure in their attempts to do God’s work, will cause God to stop loving them. 

We can be confident of God’s love as we venture to live and work for him.  His love abides.

Nothing life throws at us can separate us from the love of God.

In another context, Paul spoke about this love.  His words have inspired martyrs, missionaries, and simple saints for centuries.  They’re  found in Romans 8.

35.  Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death?

 36.  (Even the Scriptures say, "For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep."* )

 37.  No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

We can keep on because we know the love of God remains unchanged.

English poet Edith Sitwell was born into a wealthy, aristocratic home.  She was a bright child but singularly unattractive;  she knew she was unattractive because her mother told her.

Whenever she voiced her fear that she would be alone in the world, that no one would ever want her as a wife, her father would say, “Don’t worry, you will be taken care of.”

That became the title of her autobiography.
Paul's beautiful description of God's unfailing love reminds us that as we face an uncertain--sometimes fearful--future, we will be taken care of.

III

WE CAN FACE THESE DAYS

WITH CALMNESS

Panic can throw our thoughts into a whirl.  We can’t think straight.  We can’t even make clear decisions about what to do next.

God can give what we need to make the right decisions as we face frightening situations.

Some translations render the last statement as “discipline,” a word we more often associate withour outward behavior. The familiar “spirit of a sound mind” is closer to the meaning but we usually associate a sound mind with freedom from mental illness.

An unsound mind is a frightening thing.

A few years ago I received a call from a man who quickly showed himself to be suffering from delusions.  He believed the henchmen of a prominent industrialist were out to get him.  The FBI and the CIA, the man claimed, were helping his powerful enemy.  I asked if he had any family he could talk to about his fears.  He told me his wife and mother were working with the CIA.

Most people will never suffer that kind of mental illness but we still sometimes allow our thinking to get out of control, to be so undisciplined that we cultivate thinking which encourages fear and panic.

What Paul  is suggesting as an antidote to the spirit of fear is discipline in our thought-processes.

I think this is one of the most important resources for facing fearful days.  Clarity of thought is so necessary as we face stressful, frightening situations.

You may be facing some challenge--medical, economic, familial--and you feel like running, screaming into the night.  You don’t have to.

God can give you the calmness and clarity of thought you need to survive. 

This kind of thinking allows you to question the conspiracy theorists who would have you distrusting everyone.

This kind of thinking allows you to realize that your situation isn’t really the one situation in the entire universe in which God is incapable of doing anything.

CONCLUSION

Timothy faced the possibility of Roman soldiers knocking on his door at midnight and taking him away as an enemy of the state.

The problems which most often send us into panic are more common place.

Isn’t it good to know that God has given us the resources to face the most fearful days?