Opening Up--Faith vs. Fear

As many states draw to a close to this pandemic, people are beginning to reveal their true thoughts and hearts throughout social media. When people respond with words that are biting and mean, it is a clear sign that they are hurting. Hurt people hurt others because when we are hurt, we don’t always respond to situations well, and our fears and anger are leading us. It takes strength to respond with love and truth. It takes strength to move away from fear to faith. Faith responds with love, truth, and kindness.

On social media, I have written comments and sent them. I have written comments and deleted them. Some comments I regret pushing the “send” button. I was angry and feared that the other person didn’t respect me. I allowed fear to lead me. We all need to realize that when we allow fear to lead our lives, we will become unhealthy in our mental, emotional, spiritual, and even our physical lives. Our lives led with fear blind us to the needs of others, which results in mean words and unloving actions. We need to be better. We need to do better.

Fear comes when something in our lives is out of control. In order to gain some control, we want to control something or someone. Since we are in this pandemic, many of us cannot control the situations we are in, so those who fear begin to try to control others because they cannot control what is happening to them. It happens in life all the time and it’s a vicious circle. Leaders who believe that their people are not following them, begin to lead with fear so that they will have followers. It’s not a matter of who is right and who is wrong. It’s a matter of fear vs. faith.

Fear says that we need to begin to control everything and everyone in our surrounding in order to calm our fears. Even when everything is what you believe to be in your control, chaos will still reign and throw everything out of control. We cannot control chaos. We can only manage our fears. We can only look at life through the viewpoint of our own lives and experiences and begin to trust that other people will do the same. Other people cannot calm your fears. Other people cannot calm you. You have to take the steps to be calm and bring peace to your life, which will then spread to the lives of others.

Faith is not foolish or reckless. Faith is letting go of what we cannot control and managing the areas of our lives that we can control. To yell, scream, and cuss out people for not falling in line with your control and calm your fears creates more chaos and it does not work. It usually has the opposite effect and causes people to be even more rebellious, or causes them to fear you and then they respond with mean remarks.

Risk taking is difficult for most people. I know someone who doesn’t have that trigger in his brain that tells him something is dangerous; therefore, he skydives often. No one is asking anyone to jump out of a plane, but if you read the comments on social media, it makes one wonder if we are being asked to jump out of a plane with a certain type of parachute or no parachute. Risk taking means you have to go beyond your fears and have faith no matter the circumstances.

Faith needs to exist in order for humanity to thrive. Faith believes even when it seems impossible to believe. Faith understands that every human being is a creation of God and therefore, to demean a human being that God created is demeaning God. Faith does not have to BE right. Faith does what IS right. Fear has to be right, but does not do what is right. We need to allow faith to lead us instead of fear.

Let us live our lives with faith. Jesus came to bring us peace. The peace he gives is not the same kind of peace that the world has. With Jesus, His peace brings unity in midst of chaos. With the peace of Jesus, we can come together and encourage those who fear the worst. The media scares us every single day. It’s time that we spend more time with God than what the media has to say. Those who bring elements of fear will try to manipulate and lead us, but we must prevail and be led by faith.

During this time or anytime, people can stay in their homes and not fear. With faith, we can create a space that is clean. With faith, we can create something that will encourage others. With faith, we can encourage others with our words, including social media posts. With faith, we can send encouraging notes and emails to those who we may have disagreements, and those who may need someone to show them that someone cares.

During this time and anytime, people can go to places that are open and not fear. With faith, we can follow the guidelines and represent Jesus. With faith, we can spend time with others in spaces that are physically safe. With faith, we can support businesses that may have lost a lot of revenue. With faith, we can serve others, especially those who cannot go outside.

With faith, we can make a difference. With fear, we just make people angry and hopeless. With faith, we bring hope. With faith, we bring kindness and understanding to those with whom we disagree. With faith, we live our lives without judging those who live their lives differently than us, but we should always live to represent Jesus and the love that he has for everyone. It’s a difficult time. It’s a choice. We either live by faith or by fear. With faith, we will open up the doors of hope, love and peace. With every step in our lives, we make a choice. I hope we all begin to choose faith because it is only with faith and the hope that it brings that will bring the world a “New Normal.” A new world where people walk by faith.

Conquerors vs. Destroyers

People can be cruel. Whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Democrats, Republicans, or whatever other category we want to choose, people can be cruel. People can be good. Whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Democrats, Republicans, or whatever other category we want to choose, people can be good. It’s a choice we all get to make. We cannot choose it for others. We can only choose it for ourselves and we can choose how we respond and treat other people.

Recently, on one of my walks, I discovered that how I treat people demonstrates whether I am a person who destroys or conquers. If I stomp around and destroy others, I am not conquering anything. I’m just destroying. I’ve done that. It’s difficult to look back and see the destruction that lies in the path behind me. I try to be a conqueror so I can look back and see the growth of others that I have influenced in my path.

The destroyers are loud. They speak and people listen. When the entity is gone and is just a memory, we look back and recognize that it was our complacency of listening to the destroyers that allowed the destruction and failure. We do not have to argue with destroyers because they will not listen. We need to speak truth and give everyone words of wisdom that causes them to listen.

Jesus is perfect at getting the attention of those who did not agree with him to listen. He did not argue with the Pharisees and religious leaders. He silenced them. They tried to destroy him by killing him, but he conquered by resurrecting from the dead. Jesus knew his ultimate plan on earth. Maybe we need to design an ultimate plan and walk in that direction and stop becoming distracted.

Working at home sounds easy, but the difficulty is the many distractions that I thought I didn’t have. I have been better at keeping the television off, but that’s not the only distraction. We can find so many distractions in order not to deep moving forward in our lives. It’s in those distractions that we become destroyers because we focus on ourselves rather than on others, and we destroy so that no one will be able to thrive.  

Selfishness is what destroys. It carries us beyond our roots. We need to begin to look to the needs of others and then respond with love. We can only respond to others with love when we have love rooted in our hearts. The Bible states many times that if we love God we must love others. In fact, the only way we can love God is to love others. If we stomp around and destroy others, we are not loving them, God, or ourselves. Love conquers all.

May we all begin to love. During this time, it’s easy to get caught up in all the debates and arguments on social media. I know because I’ve done it. May we decide to begin to love those who think and believe differently than us and respect how they may be perceiving life at this time. If we truly believe that we are all in this together, we will respect on another with love and give grace to those who may need it most. We don’t know what everyone is facing at this time, but we do know the One who can help them. May we all strive to represent Jesus and his love for us and others, so that when we do step out of our homes, people recognize Jesus. It’s not easy, but it’s so worth it in the end.

Control in Chaos

People are protesting the shutdowns because they want to be in control. In no way am I going to judge someone when I have my own life to control. During this pandemic, it is clear that most people want a life that is in control. Once life becomes out of control, we struggle. I struggle when life is not exactly how it should be, and I am a person who loves change, but I love change when I am in control of it. It’s when I am not in control of the changes that I have to have trust. During this pandemic, I have had to trust doctors, nurses, and my administrators at my school, so I can continue to work. I have had to trust people that I know and others that I don’t know, which is why I would rather have life in control.

On social media, so many people are judging others for their actions, thoughts, and words. I wonder if their lives are in complete control or completely out of control, and before they lose their minds, they have to control the thoughts, actions, and words of others. I have lived my whole life with the wisdom of my mother that you never know what someone is going through until you walk in their shoes. Maybe, just maybe, we all could begin to trust one another to put our lives back in control.

I have to trust doctors that I cannot see face to face. My Mom has to have a small surgery to get a passageway clear in her throat so she can swallow and intake food. It’s not an emergency surgery; it’s an elective surgery. She’s fine, but we have been back and forth to the hospital and getting all kinds of information from all kinds of doctors, which is why I now understand why the information about this coronavirus is all over the place. I want to be in control. I think I’ll become a doctor.

Teaching online is difficult because I have to change my lesson plans and try to keep the students engaged without knowing if they really are engaged or if they are on social media the entire time during class. I teach high school. You can guess which one they are doing. My super extroverted students are great participants. The others, not so much. Tik-Tok is much more their style. I want control back in my classroom. I think I’ll become a social media star and post videos on Tik-Tok.

All of the changes we are enduring creates situations that are out of our control. As a person who claims to love change, I don’t. I like to make calculated changes. I don’t like change to happen to me, but that is exactly how life works. Life does not always allow us to only make calculated changes.  I cannot become a social media star nor a doctor. I have to change and let go of having to be in control of everything and everyone. I don’t want to do that. I have to do that.

We want life to go back to the way it was because we want to be in control of our lives again. Instead, we have an upset apple cart, and we don’t even know when or how to pick up the apples, or if we should even touch them. This last week, I have read accounts from the Bible to trust in God when life is out of control. I wasn’t looking for these accounts; they were just the next ones in a study I am doing. I want to be in control. I have to give control over to God, and it is difficult.

In the past few years, I’ve noticed that when people’s lives are out of control, they want to control others, so that they have control over something. That way, they do not have to focus on the chaos that is out of control in their own lives. I know because I do it too. I say, “Believe what you want and think what you want,” because I don’t want people to control my thoughts and beliefs, but the reality is no one can do that unless I allow them to do that. I do have control. We all do.

We can all control our response to situations. We can control our response to what people say to us. We can control what we say, but even the Bible admits in James, that no one can control his or her tongue. We have control, but we refuse to use it. I am going to try to control what I can during this time and not fret over what I cannot control.

I can control what I do with the time I have. I can control my attitude. I can control my comments on social media. I can try to control what I say. I have to let God control some of my circumstances. I have to control my response to them. I know this. It’s not easy, but anything worth doing is not easy. It’s not easy, but it is one way I can have trust, peace, and a bit of normalcy in this time in our history when life is not normal. Life may be out of control, but I do not have to be out of control. I must trust God, people, and my responses. It’s all any of us can do.