Fear of the unknown, in my opinion, is the most prevalent fear that we as humans face on a daily basis.
Either we are fighting the good fight against our daily fears of the unknown, or we are lying to ourselves in saying that we don’t struggle with this fear. This idea may contradict what many of us have been taught; however, if we really take a deep look at our lives, we will discover we all fight this fight.
Some teach that if you have faith, you will have no fears in your life. This sadly is only a partial truth. It is by faith that we believe, and through our faith that we fight the good fight against our fears; nevertheless, to say we won’t fear because we have faith is like saying we won’t sin because we have surrendered our lives to Christ.
The biggest lie that we can believe is that if we worry, stress, deal with anxiety, suffer from depression, and have fears is that we don’t have enough faith.
The lie wants us to believe that Mrs. Smith across the street has more faith than us because she seems to trust God more. The lie tells us that we are a failure as a Christian; additionally, it tells us we can never be that kind of Christian. These lies are just that…lies. They are designed for one purpose and one purpose only; to get us to turn from God’s Truth. When we begin to believe these lies, we begin to doubt God’s Truth, His Promises, and His Unconditional Love for us. You however, are not alone in doing this; for every human since the beginning of time has done the same things. We all have at one point, or at many points in our lives believed these lies. In fact, there is only One who has never fallen for these lies; and His name is Jesus.
Jesus tells us that all we need is the faith of a mustard seed to tell a mountain to move from here to there (Matthew 17:20). However we also see in other parts of the Bible where Jesus tells his disciples they have little faith (Matthew 14:31). Does Jesus contradict Himself? Absolutely not! When Jesus says to Peter “come” (Matthew 14:29) Peter steps out of the boat and walks on water based on his faith in Jesus. Then Peter, like all the rest of us, gets distracted by the winds and the waves; allowing fear to take the place of his faith. When Jesus tells Peter that he has “little faith” after He rescues him from sinking, it is important to know that it was not a lack in faith that Jesus is refereeing too. Rather He is saying, “Why did you lose confidence in me?” “Why did you let fear take its place in your heart where your faith in Me was?” Jesus is not scolding Peter for a lack of faith, but rather a replacement of that faith. Peter, who walked on water with his faith in Christ, also allowed the fear of the unknown to cause him to sink amongst the winds and waves of life.
The question is not if you have faith or not; on the contrary;
the question should be are you living your life with a heart of faith, or a heart of fear?
By Rev. Daniel Forster
Used by Permission
Further Reading
• The Dark Tunnel of the Unknown – by Kristi Huseby
• Fear God and You Need Fear Nothing Else – by Helen Lescheid