I understand that this current virus is serious, but that doesn’t mean we live our lives in fear. We fear the unknown. It is evident when we fear the unknown when we go to a store to buy supplies and they are gone because people have hoarded them. When we fear the unknown, we will become slaves to those who cause us to fear. Fear has a result of someone else controlling our actions, our actions leading to unwise choices, and selfishness.
When we fear, someone else gets to control our actions. When I worked in the church, I feared getting fired so everyone was able to control my activities and time. when I did use the powerful word, “No,” I was usually greeted with, “You’ll get fired if you don’t…” Today, I’m like, “Oh, well. I’ve been there. Done that. Hope not to do it tomorrow, but I’m still not doing that activity that has nothing to do with my current job and workload.” Fear puts other people in charge of our lives. We have to create boundaries that doesn’t allow fear or anyone to control our lives.
Faith means we look inwardly and decide that the only person we can fix or change is ourselves. We cannot control the actions of others, but we can control how we respond to those actions. Our response to those actions reveals our faith in God and in people. When we allow others to control our responses, our lives spiral out of control to the point that we become emotionally, spiritually, and physically weak and sick. When we gather strength, and move forward and away from those who want to control us to not do what we are gifted or called to do, we are living by faith. For the next few weeks, we can all live by faith and not by fear and not allowing those who want to control us with fear to lead us to make unwise choices.
Fear creates unwise choices. Faith creates wise choices. My school, along with the entire Los Angeles school district sent us home for fourteen days. I advised my students to do the work that they were missing. It would be wise to do this during this time, so when they return, they can move forward in their academics. We all need to use our time wisely and pursue those tasks that we have pushed aside because we stated that we did not have time. For most of us, we just didn’t use our time wisely. Now, with much faith, we can use our time wisely. Many of those tasks are the dreams we want to pursue. We can stay away from public activities and begin pursuing those dreams. My job unknowingly gave me a two week break to have my own writing retreat at home. Pursuing our dreams is an action of faith. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things unseen.” Hebrews 11:1 Substance is the physical matter of which things exist. Faith is not just unseen. It is the actions of what we can see and pursuing our dreams with those tasks that need to be done for our dreams to materialize are actions of faith with wisdom.
Fear leads us to acts of selfishness. In no way do I want to shame anyone who has gathered many supplies out of fear. I get it. The media has scared us to death, and they are angrily screaming that they did not tell us to gather toilet paper. The one thing I did discover during this time is that fear makes us selfish. When we fear, we hoard. I hoard books. I don’t know if I am afraid there will be a world without books, or I will need to use the pages for toilet paper one day, but I do hoard books. I do know that I sometimes fear I will not know something or someone, so books become my teachers and friends. It’s something I’m trying to cure. Knowing our fears is the first step in overcoming our fears. Admitting to what we fear is what will help us gather faith. We can all begin to overcome our fears. It might be taking time to ourselves and turning off the noise of those who bring fears, and it will also take being selfless.
Selflessness was revealed to me on a mission trip a few years ago. This was a mission trip in Samoa where the community shared all of their supplies and resources with everyone in their village. Stealing was a huge crime because you only needed to ask for help and they would give. It was the poorest community I have ever encountered and they were more selfless than any American community that I have ever lived or visited. Selflessness is an act of faith. Selflessness means we do not respond with fear and hoarding, but we respond with giving. A church in Los Angeles is responding with school closures with giving meals for the families and children that would have received meals at school. This church always steps up in a crisis. The Dream Center is an example of a response with selflessness that reveals faith instead of fear. We can all do something, even if it is something small. It can be a small act of giving some time to reach out to someone who could be lonely. It could be donating money or supplies to those in need. We all need to step up and be a voice of faith and not fear and selflessness is one way of that becoming a reality.
During this time with the pandemic, may we all live with faith and not fear. May we pursue our dreams, make wise decisions, and give of ourselves selflessly to others. May we all put our fears away and, “Walk by faith and not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7
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