The Beginning of Fear and Why it’s Wrong
Everyone has things they’re afraid of. Everyone has worries in the back of their minds. We don’t like being afraid, and we don’t like that it keeps us from deeper relationships or doing things other people enjoy, but we can’t seem to stop being afraid. Why is this?
Show Notes:
Today we are talking about fear and anxiety. For the most part, I’m going to use these two terms interchangeably, because they stem from the same things and cause similar effects and problems for us. If I use them distinctly, I mean ‘anxiety’ to be the steady trickle in the background—similar to worry—and ‘fear’ to be the more intense feeling when something scary is right there in front of you.
Everyone has things they’re afraid of. Everyone has worries in the back of their minds. We don’t like being afraid, and we don’t like that it keeps us from deeper relationships or doing things other people enjoy, but we can’t seem to stop being afraid. Why is this?
Let’s start with an important question. According to the Bible, is it wrong to be fearful? This is important because it determines how we approach this whole topic. If fear is not sinful but just something we all deal with, then you can pick and choose which fears to address and only put in as much effort as you feel like at any given time. On the other hand, if being anxious and fearful is morally wrong, then we need to make every effort to abolish it from our lives, whatever the cost.
From my study of scripture, I am convinced that being fearful is wrong. Let me show you why.
I searched the Bible for instances where God commands his people to take courage or not to be afraid. I found over one hundred occurrences. In the pages of scripture, no one is ever praised for being anxious; instead, people are consistently instructed against it. This alone should bring us to the conclusion that being fearful is wrong, but why? Why does it matter to God if we are afraid? To find the answer to this, we need to look back to the dawn of fear.
The Bible tells us at the beginning of Genesis that Adam and Eve ‘walked with God.’ One of the implications of this phrase is that Adam and Eve trusted God. They were completely confident that He would protect and care for them.
Think of the best relationship that you have, the one with the person who has proven their love and care for you the most and has done the least to harm you. You trust them because you can safely predict that if your needs ever come into conflict with theirs, they’ll still try to do what is best for you. Adam and Eve’s relationship with God was even better. Adam and Eve had never been wronged and had never been given a reason to distrust anyone. A conflict of interest wasn’t even possible. Everything was perfect.
Then in Genesis 3, the two of them ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, disobeying God’s instructions, and suddenly they knew something was wrong. How did they respond? They hid their nakedness with fig leaves, and they hid themselves from God among the trees. God came walking in the garden and asked, “Where are you?” and Adam said, “I heard You in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
“I was afraid.” For the first time, Adam did not trust God. He knew he had done something very wrong, and he knew there was something very wrong with him. In that moment, he was unsure how God would respond, and he was afraid. Sin entered the world and with it, a host of unknowns, dangers, and other things beyond their control. Adam and Eve’s relationship with their Creator was broken, and they no longer fully trusted Him the way they had before they’d sinned. Thanks to the fallen sin nature they passed down, this is now true of all of us. We don’t trust God, and as a result, we are all afraid.
This is a moral problem because God is worthy of trust. Being both perfect and sovereign, God always brings about the ultimate good in every situation. When we are afraid, what we’re essentially saying is either, “God, I don’t believe you’re capable of handling this,” or “God, I don’t think you care about me enough to always do what’s best for me.” That is an affront to the character and magnificent glory of God. When we believe these lies about God, we try to take our physical and emotional safety into our own hands. We say, “No thanks, God, I’ll take it from here,” thinking we have more knowledge and power than God Himself. That is a very unwise decision.
Imagine you set your young child or younger sibling on a ledge and tell them to jump into your arms. They shake their head ‘no.’ You promise them that you love them and that you won’t let them fall. Still they refuse. What is their unspoken assessment of the situation? You’re not good enough. I don’t trust you. That hurts your heart, doesn’t it? Why? Because you know that you deserve their trust. Now imagine there is a danger coming toward them, something they don’t understand is dangerous. You try to convince them that they’re safer jumping than staying, but they just can’t bring themselves to do it.
This is an imperfect picture of how we act when we are afraid, but I hope it helps you. God commands us to trust Him, rather than living in the grip of fear, and that makes it morally wrong to be fearful. Additionally, God knows that trusting Him is the best possible thing for us, much better than going through life anxious and afraid. Living in fear damages relationships, hampers work productivity, and can cripple mental health. We have to choose trust and take the leap into our Father’s arms, both because it is right and because it is for our own good.
If you’ve never taken the time to think about what things you’re afraid of, try to do that this week. If you already know and are fed-up with the problem and hoping for some concrete ways of taking care of fear, keep listening! We’re going to get very practical before this series is through. Next week we’re going to talk about how specific fears get started in our hearts and minds and how to f