Faith is rest and peace.
Faith knows Who GOD is.
"I know WHOM I have believed."

Faith has its reverse . . .
Unbelief is a hidden skepticism
of the heart
but its enactment is fear.

Fear is the outward symptom
that doubt
is ruling within . . .
and does not know HIM.

Fear is faith in reverse.
Confidence that He won't come -
belief that He isn't telling the truth,
at least "not to me."
And so fear reigns.
Dread of His failure . . .
certainty of His indifference.
These are the secret faiths
that spawn fear.

Nice words excuse fear and make us
less guilty of it as a heinous sin.
It's not really fear, it's only worry.
"We should worry about what's
important, shouldn't we?"

No, anxiety is simply unbelief
and stress, an invented word
that hides terror
and elevates it to the understandable.
The pitiable.

Fear is sin. Human foible, yes.
Normal to us, yes.

But fear in His disciples
drew an uncommon anger
from the longsuffering Jesus.

He who was patient unendingly,
who endured their scheming ambition,
and gave kindness to His own murderer,
had no tolerance for their fear.

The storm at sea was the exposure of
their basic doubt.
A real-life test of their
comprehension of Him.
"Why are you so afraid?
Do you still have no faith?"

We fear what is under His thumb's dominion.
And we don't fear Him who
sits as king of
the entire universe
and rules to the smallest raindrop. 

To fear the storm is to
believe in the storm's power to kill me
and to negate His strength to save me.
It is betrayal.
It is a blind cowardice for which
He has no patience.

At Jesus' power over the storm,
their fear turned from the squall
to the One who ruled it so easily
and their natural terror
changed to a horrified awe of Him.

"Who is this?
Even the wind and the waves
obey Him!"

And that is the right fear.
The legitimate terror. 

Fear of anything, of anyone is
the exposure of
- not only our lack of faith in God -
but it reveals the place where we
deposit our confidence.
The revealing of
what . . . and who we do believe. 

What you fear unfolds your secret idol . . .
the one whose power you exalt.
Name your fear and you have named your god.

What you fear, you serve.
What you serve, you die for.
(To give up your "self" is to die.
To surrender your freedom willingly is to die.)

What you give your life to . . . is your god.

What you fear IS what you believe in.
It is what you believe holds power over you
and in that place you build a willing altar and
a self-made prison.
 
So fear is the basis and center of worship.
That's why we dare not fear
even the one who can kill the body,
Fear is reserved only for Him who
"can destroy both soul and body in hell."

Worship rises from fear and fear is worship.

The secret core of all dread is this:
the chilling fear of death.
That innate fight for life, the fierce
motive of self-preservation -
this is the hidden root of fear, its power
to smell danger and scramble to
survive even if it means
surrender of the soul's freedom.

Survival is all.
So powerful is that fear of death
in any form, at any level,
that we will compromise, acquiesce,
even abandon GOD . . . anything to be safe.

The man who buried his talent used fear as
his excuse for being blatantly disobedient.

He had the audacity to justify his fear by
accusing God of being the terror
that had paralyzed him,
and assuming the Master would so
sympathetically understand
that He would waive any penalty!

This is not just a parable,
it is a portrait of human nature
drawing in vivid color,
our self-pitying belief
in our unfounded fears.

We have all done it: supporting our fright
by reproaching God
because life is hard. 

The Master's reply astonishes.
He proves He is hard.
Merely over a talent, a single talent
He condemns to a form of hell!
"outer darkness of weeping and
gnashing of teeth."
Just over a small understandable fear!

That fear for which we hold so much sympathy.
That fear of loss and failure imposed
by life's unfairness!
That fear is named by its real identity,
exposed by the One
Who Reads Hearts.
and Who Knows
ALL secret thought.

It isn't fear at all . . .
it's "wicked and lazy."
Hard words for poor humans.

What are we to do?

Fear is evil, not just "human."
Fear is wicked because at bottom
it is an accusation of God,
a slam at His character.
A rejection of His goodness.
An insult to His power.

Anybody can fear.
That's easy. Just sit down.
All of us can make up terror
and stop there . . .
"A lion is in the road!" 

It is work, hard work to gain the
courage to venture out and multiply.

To sow, you have to believe in sowing.
To risk, you must be assured of safety.

And to believe, you must fight.
You must work.

It's not hard to believe.
It is hard to refute doubt
against the remembered proofs
that lie inside your soul.

The fight is to find His view
and hold to that view
against your reasoning self.

To fight fear is to fight what appears
so solid and obvious,
to refute the beclouded ideas
of your own mind set.

The enemy of your soul uses fear to
capture you and hold you.
If you can be made afraid, you will stay
as a volunteer
confined in a cell with no bars.

And the power of all threats is
merely this - a lie.
Nothing has power over you. Only God.
Nothing can touch you without your consent!

". . . do not fear what they fear,
and do not dread it.
The Lord Almighty is the
one you are to regard as holy,
He is the one you are to fear,
He is the one you are to dread." 

All other fears are
forbidden because not valid.

Fear is reserved toward God alone
because He reigns over life and death . . .
heaven . . . and hell. 

Matthew 10:28
Matthew 14:27-39
Mark 4:35-41
Isaiah 8:13
Proverbs 22:13

Copyright © 1999 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick