Do We LIve by Fear or by Faith?

 

Today is Halloween. Every year in my class, I ask my students for a warm-up exercise what it is that they fear. The tough kids always write “nothing,” which is a lie because the moment they have to face an administrator, they are scared. The top fears are death, bugs, spiders, the dark, and heights. We all have fears, whether they are rational or irrational, we all have them. For people who tell me they don’t, we can read their social media posts and see all the fears. People fear that they will lose their freedom or lose the country that they know. People fear that they will lose their jobs, or their health, or their family. The question isn’t what is that we fear. The question is how we can overcome our fears and why it is important that we do. 

I know the roots of Halloween are evil. I know because a youth pastor informed us as young children of the roots. His teaching didn’t make me fear Halloween. It made me fear disobeying any of the rules that were set-up by the leaders in our church. If the leaders were able to have us follow the rules because of fear, they could control us. Leaders have been doing this for centuries. No matter which church you have attended, which political party line you align yourself, or any boss that you have over you, leaders have at some point led with fear. Why do they do this? Simple. If we lead with fear tactics, then people will not be rational and will just obey the words of the leaders, then the leaders will control us. 

Fear is about control. If we feel out of control with something in our lives, then we fear what could happen or is happening. One reason people fear the future is that it is out of their control. People do not like change because they fear what they cannot control. We must let go of the concept that we have to control other people. we cannot control other people as much as we will try. If we can control people, they will follow the control for a specific amount of time, and then they will stop following us. 

If we notice how people attempt to get us to purchase their wares, or vote for their candidate, or even attend their church, we can recognize when their driving force is for us to fear so they can control what we do. It may not sound like fear and control, but the moment we say that people cannot be Christians if they do this or that or vote this way or that or say this or that. Sin can be forgiven, including the sin of getting people to fear that God does not love them, so that they can be controlled by humans. 

So, where do we go from here? We begin to find those who are leading with empowerment. They make room for innovations, even if those innovations seem silly. If we look at history, people always laughed at people who were inventing. Instead of laughing, we have made room for inventors to keep creating. The television show, Shark Tank has incorporated the spirit of inventions, as people are always going on the show to get their new idea and product on a mass market. 

Let us take a close look at that which we fear. Are we allowing our fears and those who push our fears to control us, or are we controlling our fears and living a life of faith despite the bumps in the road that try to detour us and put us into despair? We can overcome our fears and let our lives be led by faith. Our fears will exist, but we cannot allow the fears or those pushing our fears to control us. We must allow for God to control our hearts, so that we are not walking by fear but by faith. So, no matter how we view or celebrate Halloween, we can all, give our fears and those who control them over to God and have a night of faith. 

Are We Driving by Fear or by Faith?

 As we approach Halloween, we are reminded that humans have a relationship with fear. Fear creates a response that can harm. As we listen to the news or scroll through social media, we realize that many people are living their lives driven by fear. Whether they are afraid of the government, illnesses, other people, natural disasters, or losing something valuable to them, fear is what motivates their actions and thoughts. Many Christians will claim that they follow Christ, so they are not driven by fear, but that is not true. Many Christians live their lives with fear and then wonder why they struggle with their faith. We cannot live fearfully and then claim that we have faith in Jesus. 

When we are driven by fear, we insult people and demand that they think and believe like us or society will fail. Once we do this, we are requiring for other people to live by fear. This is not a new phenomenon. This has been occurring for hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years. If we just look at America, we can see that since the Puritan days, Christians have lived their lives by fear. The Puritans feared people thinking for themselves. The Puritans feared the leaders, so they followed the rules, even if they did not have a true belief in God. For the Puritans, once they found themselves not following the rules, they feared punishment, so they immediately pointed out the sins of someone else, so that person would receive punishment, and no one would see their sins. This is exactly what we are doing today, except we see most of it on the Internet. We must choose to focus on repenting from our own sins, and then we do not have to worry about the sins of someone else. 

Once we choose to live by fear, we limit ourselves, and then we blame others and God for our unfulfilled lives. We choose to live in safety and not take a risk on an opportunity that is given to us with our careers. We do not take risks in relationships, so we settle and then blame everyone else for our own choices. We become envious of other people who are succeeding in business or in relationships, or even in their spiritual lives, and we choose to dig to find their flaws. We do this because we are blind that we are living by fear, and they are living by faith. Living by faith is a choice to take calculated risks, as we continue to follow God and seek his will. Living by fear is a choice to not take risks, as we continue to follow rules and blame God for not revealing his will to us. If we let go of our fears, we can live by faith and have a life that is unlimited. 

Living by fear is easy. Living by faith is difficult. When we live by fear, we proclaim that our ways are the only way to live. When we live by faith, we proclaim that we can love other people as Jesus did, even if they are not living the life that Jesus would set for them. If we live by faith, we continue to serve others and love them, without worrying that the world will fall apart if we do not follow certain rules or believe and think in specific ways. Look at society. People who are living by faith are striving. They are serving others and not getting recognition. (I always think of those who are working with the homeless.) They are discovering innovative ways to help others and work with other people, even if those people think and believe differently than them. Living by faith is difficult, but it is worth it in the end. 

We have a choice. We can continue to live by fear, which I did for many years in my Christian life, or we can choose to live by faith and honor God with our lives. 2 Corinthians 5:7 claims, “For we live by faith, not by sight.” (NIV) If we really do live by faith, we do not worry about what we cannot see in the future. We live in the present to make a better future for those around us when we walk by faith. Let us choose that in this next week as we will hear and see sights that could frighten us, that we will begin to live by faith and not fear. 

A Day Without Social Media--What Did We Do? What Could We Learn?

On Monday October 4, 2021, Facebook, Instagram, What’s App, and any other social media app that is owned by Facebook went down for about six to eight hours. Twitter survived, and some of the Tweeters acted as if every word they write is perfect, true, and kind, and trust me, Twitter should have gone down too, as it is one of the meanest social media sites that we have. The question is, since social media was down, what did we do? What can we learn from this? 

Many people jumped over to Twitter and claimed how evil the other social media sites were while they continued to be cruel with their words on Twitter. That is a condition that we see in other social circles, including and especially in the church. Christians are great at pointing out the flaws in other people, other Christians, and “those” churches, while at the same time they continue in their own sins. We must focus on our own flaws and sins, and guess what? The evil that we see in society will be less by one person. We can start doing this with social media. 

Some people found that they could be more productive without checking social media throughout the day. They were able to work without the stress if anyone liked or did not like their post, or if enough people were on their platform for whatever product that they serve for others. It became a day of not worrying what other people were thinking about us. Maybe we need to begin to take more time to worry less about what other people think about us and take the time to serve those who no one even thinks about in life. 

Some people struggled as they work a business from social media. They had to discover other ways to build their platforms or make time to work on their business. To build businesses, we rely on other people and their creations. We must find ways to work together to build rather than use these platforms to destroy. If we would build others up in life, we would be able to create more businesses and serve more people. We also may need to discover more ways in which to build our platforms outside of social media sites. 

Some people were frustrated because they had no one around them to hear their point of views and how their point of view is perfect, true, and good, and if anyone disagrees with it, then they must unfollow them and never speak to them because they do not have perfect points of view like them. My entire sarcastic rant hopefully reveals my complete frustration with these types of posts. These people stand on the right and the left. If we struggle to connect and accept someone else’s point of view whom we cannot see, how do we treat people that we can see? We must do better. We can speak the truth, but if we do not speak the truth in love, we are just spewing our points of view recklessly, and it is why people do not listen to us nor take us seriously. If we are Christians, speaking the truth in love is a sign of maturity according to Ephesians 4:15. 

We must begin to understand that not everyone will agree with our point of view. Some people have experiences that we know nothing about, and their point of view is based on their experiences of which we have no knowledge. What we see on social media is only a small portion of who someone is. Sometimes, we do not even see the truth of who someone is. We must remember that how we treat people on social media must parallel with how we treat people in real life, or everything we proclaim is a lie. 

Many people realized that social media wants to control our thoughts and words. We should control our thoughts and words. We can speak the truth, but if Christians quote that part of the verse one more time without the ending to speak the truth in love, then their first phrase is useless. Social media may want to control our thoughts and words, but we are the ones who are typing the words on our pages. We are the ones sharing information that a human may or may not have created. We are the ones who choose to reply or scroll forward to something better. We must take control of what we say and do. If we are censored for saying something kind and loving and truthful, then we have a different conversation. 

So, what did we learn? We learned that we are not so good without our social media platforms. We realized that social media could control what we see and think. We must learn that we must control our thoughts and words because if we don’t, someone else will come along and tell us what to think and speak. It’s been like this for centuries. It’s just easier to identify with social media. It is time we use social media as a tool, and not let that tool become our focus in life. 

 

It's Fall! Time for Old Habits to Drop and New Habits to Form!

 As we enter the month of October, we realize that summer is completely over, and fall is upon us. We have pumpkins and pumpkin spiced foods all through the grocery store. We have football games with homecomings, and baseball games that are now in the playoff mode. In parts of America, the leaves on trees are changing colors and the weather is getting cooler. As we see the beginning of some events and the ending of others, we are reminded in fall that life has changes, and the only way to change, is to let go of those habits that hold us back from doing what we are called to do. 

We need to let go of habits that do not create in us a life that is fulfilling and wastes time. We all have those habits. They are not sinful or horrible, they are just time wasters. They are different for everyone. For some, they are scrolling through social media, for others they are playing games on the computer or video games, for others it is television or streaming. There are many other time wasters, and even if it is not on the list, we all have habits that waste time. Habits that waste our time and take us away from living a purposeful and fulfilled life will always hold us back, and we will not be able to move forward, so like leaves that fall to the ground, we just fall to the ground with our dreams and goals, and they die. We must use our time wisely and take back our dreams and goals so that they will stay alive. 

We need to let go of habits that we have developed with an attitude of complaining. I am guilty just as much as anyone to complain. I realize when I am doing it and that no one wants to hear it all the time. Complaining about events in life that we cannot change, keeps us sicker emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and sometimes even physically. We must be grateful for what we have, and not focus on what we do not have. We cannot control what the government does or does not do, but we can control our actions and attitudes toward people that we see every day. 

It’s not just in politics in which we find complaining, but in the church too. I have never been to a church where I have not heard people complain. They complain about the leaders, the times of services, and any type of change. (My home church had arguments of the color of the carpet. The final decision was two variations of gold, and yes, it was ugly.) Complaining never fixes or changes anything. In fact, complaining creates division. It severs relationships. It’s hard to be grateful when there are issues that we want to fix, but we must not only be grateful, but to pray and encourage our spiritual leaders so that they will make better decisions, and we need to compliment more and complain less. 

We need to drop the habit of insulting people. Scroll through any social media site and it is full of insults. When did we decide that insulting people will force them to change their view on life? It won’t. It only creates anger and enemies from those who used to be friends. People forget that people behind screens are real human beings with all the emotions that humans have. We all have struggles, and many people do not share all their struggles on social media. We all need to create the habit of kindness, so that more people can have hope and work toward their dreams and goals. 

It is fall. In this season, a baseball team will be crowned the World Series Champions. In this season, college football games will determine who is going to the playoffs, and the NFL will have its real league and fantasy league. It is fall, and with this season, it is time that we let go of habits that destroy us, and develop new habits of encouragement, time fulfillment, and kindness. With those new habits, the winter season will be much better.