Fear Keeps Us Stuck; Faith Moves Us Forward

 I have used the cliché that fear is the opposite of faith. I believe that it is true, but I also know that a cliché can be insulative and demoralizing. People who hear the words, “You have cancer,” have a genuine fear creep into their lives. Saying a cliché to them that “Fear is the opposite of faith, so have faith,” is not helpful and it tells the person that we do not care about them but that our words are correct. 

Everyone faces fear. It’s how we move when we are afraid that creates a life of faith and a life of creativity. Too many times in life we get stuck when we are afraid. We stay too long in a job. We stay too long in a relationship. We even stay too long living in a community because we fear moving to a new place. Most of us fear the unknown. What we do not realize is that our fear keeps us from moving forward. We get angry as we watch other people move ahead in life and wonder why we are not getting ahead in life. We have to look introspectively and be honest with ourselves if we are not getting ahead because we are not good at what we do, or if we are not doing what it takes, or if we are afraid. If we are honest, it is the last one that affects the other two. 

Jesus never promised us that life would be comfortable and safe. He told us not to fear as he would be with us. This last week I realized that when I was a younger, I jumped and took many risks. As I became older, I became calculated with risk as I believed I was being responsible, but I was not. I became more responsible when I finally took a risk that would benefit others and not just myself. So, how do we jump and take a risk, even if we still have fears? We trust, we pray, we communicate. 

We have to trust. First, we have to trust that God has given us the gifts, talents, and provisions for us to take this direction in our lives. As a person who creates writings, I have realized that I had to trust that God has given me this talent and the more I use it, the better it serves people. If I just keep it to myself because I am afraid of what others may think, then I am not trusting the gifts and talents that God has given me, which reveals that I do not trust God because I am revealing that I believe that God did not gift me well. So, I must create and trust. I will mess up and do wrong, but I must always trust the process. 

Prayer is an anecdote to fear. The more we pray with specific requests, the more we become fearless and decide that we must move forward. It does not mean that there will not be struggles. It does not mean that there will not be setbacks. It means that we have a God who listens to us and one we can rely on when we are afraid to take the next step. Prayer gives us the strength to keep moving, even when we are afraid. 

We must communicate with others. For a long time in my life, I kept my writing to myself that I wanted to write because when I would tell people they would laugh or scoff at my ideas. I didn’t realize that every artisan will encounter that criticism because people who do nothing are jealous of those who do something, so they criticize those who do something. So, I just had to decide to do something. We need to communicate with others our ideas as we may begin to collaborate with other people who can help facilitate our ideas. 

We cannot allow fear to rule us. We must follow the dreams that we have. We must trust, pray, and communicate. We must use our gifts and talents for others. We cannot live in fear. So many people are still living in fear and anxiety. In order to thrive as full human beings, fear will hold us back and trap us. We must continue to press forward even with the fear. Then, in the end, we will realize how fear became acts of faith along the way. It is when we reflect on our journey that we will see whether we are driven by faith or by fear. Let us move with faith. 

The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth

 During quarantine, people took the time to reflect on their lives and discover what they could change about themselves and began to work on those areas. Some people lost weight. Other people wrote books. Some people found a new job or a new hobby. Other people quit a job that had a toxic environment and others quit their bad habits. Whatever we do, we have to come to the realization of facing the truth in our lives; however, many of us have been programmed to avoid the truth, so we carry that mantra into our adulthood and our entire lives. 

Since most of the country is now open, violence is up in most major cities. It is not that people choose to be violent, but that they struggle to face the truth about themselves that become revealed when they are around other humans. Self-reflection is a mental health activity, but if we just reflect and not have any action to it, we are avoiding the truth that we need to face. 

Like so many other people, I have struggled to face the truth that I am not just a victim of the church hurt, but that I have also hurt other people. The truth is that I had focused so much on myself, that I lost the vision of focusing on Christ to guide others to him. Along with realizing that I have hurt people, I also have had to face the truth that my response to hurt was not always healthy for me and for others, and yet I continued to respond with the same response in the situations, and I would continue to get hurt. This occurred in relationships outside of the church too. 

The church, like many other institutions, needs to face the truth that for decades, we have not represented Jesus. We have been a good representation of rules, regulations, and rituals, along with righteous behavior, but we have not represented Christ because as we were following the rules, we did not leave room for love. If we want to truly represent Christ, the church needs to love other people with the love that Jesus has for them. There is no room for excuses. 

The church cannot shout and scream about the behavior of other people who do not follow Christ and yet condone the actions of Christians who do the exact same behavior. We need to face the truth that sinners attend church, no matter what faced they wear when they enter the doors on Sunday. This misrepresentation of Jesus has tarnished the church, not Jesus. Those of us in the church need to realize that we must change in order to represent Christ. 

Change is difficult for everyone. I realized a few months ago, that as much as I claim that I love change, there are areas in life in which I do not love change. If we want to grow, or dare I use the phrase, “Go deeper,” then we must change. We not only need to change our behavior toward other people, but we also need to change our hearts show that we can reveal genuine love to people. 

So, as we come together as a country and the church to battle sin, we must be truthful with ourselves and change. anything worth doing, will take time, hard work, and being honest with ourselves and others. Without truth, we cannot stand. We must be and speak the truth. 

The Cost of Freedom

 Anything that is free cost someone something. We live in a society in which we want to thrive on that which is free, but it costs someone, and freedom itself is expensive. If freedom were not expensive, it would be worthless. The more a product costs, the more precious it is to the owner. The cost is not always money, and on July 4th, we celebrate and remember the cost of freedom for this country. As Christians, we can appreciate the cost of freedom that Jesus gave us. We just need to remember and realize that freedom isn’t free, and its cost is precious as it cost many their lives. 

Men and women have lost their lives fighting for our freedom in America. We have the freedom to vote for whom we want, to think how we want, and believe how we want, even if our beliefs are not substantiated in facts, we have the freedom to believe. I would have it no other way. I don’t want to be forced to believe or think how others want me to think and believe.  I don’t want everyone to think and believe the same, and that includes spiritual beliefs. I’m a Duke basketball fan. There is no way I’ll ever believe and think like everyone else, but that’s not the only freedom we can celebrate. 

Jesus sacrificed his life for us to live free from sin. He gave everything, so that we could be saved by grace through faith. There is no act of service or good work that we can do to repay him for his sacrifice. People try to repay him with acts of service and good behavior. As humans, I think we struggle with this because we cannot comprehend such an act of sacrifice. We can show gratitude, but we need to know that it will not repay Jesus, but to show gratitude to Jesus.

With all of the sacrifice for our freedom, how do we respond? We show gratitude. Gratitude can come in the form of actions with service. We can show gratitude with our love toward other human beings, even if, and especially if, we disagree with them in the realm of spiritual or political issues. We can begin to love those that are different from us. 

Loving others is the complete strategy of showing gratitude for those who sacrificed for our freedom. The ten commandments are summed up in two commands, love God and love others as you love yourself. Love is the answer. If we love others, we communicate without belittling and mocking. If we love others, we understand that they will believe and think differently from us, and we appreciate that, even if we disagree. If we love others, we listen with empathy and compassion. If we love others, we perform acts that benefit all. 

This July 4th, may we celebrate the freedom that we have. May we also express gratitude for that freedom with love, so that others may enjoy the freedom. If we fight for freedom with love, then love will prevail. The sacrifice of life for our freedom was done for love. Jesus loved us and wanted to save us from our sins, and our soldiers loved the country for which they died. Let us show our gratitude with an act of love.