You can and do face fear and faith at the same time

How many times has a brother or sister in Christ or a misguided preacher told you that if you are a Christian you cannot fear and have faith because they are total opposites? The problem with foolish statements like that is we are human and humans have emotion and fear is an emotion. You do not have to choose to live in fear that takes control of your life because you can trust God to be with you in all circumstances, but the emotions of fear, love, jealousy, greed are natural emotions which God allows into our lives.  

For practical purposes fear is the enemy of hope and IS the opposite of faith, but we have to deal with reality. There will be times in life when we will all side with one or the other fear/faith. Fear can be good. One of the first things I was told when arriving in Vietnam was fear those that claim they do not fear for they will get you killed. Faith can be misplaced at times for instance taking literally we can move mountains with our words of faith. If you have FAITH you do not need to live in fear that paralyzes you from moving forward or taking a chance you know you should take. The faith I want and I want you to have is the God-given strength to face down uncertainty and doubt and move forward down the path He is leading us.

Fear will keep you from living the life God created you for. It will keep you up at night with thoughts of facing the new day without the courage to change and fear will rob you of opportunities. We were not meant to live in fear, but fear can be so paralyzing it can be hard to imagine rising up from beneath it. We know as Christians we shouldn’t feel the way we do and can be determine to overcome it, only to find ourselves frozen over and over again in fear.

Faith is the answer for common fear. Faith is an action word, a verb. Faith is so much more than a simple belief. We read in James 2:20,” …faith without action is useless.” The more active our faith becomes the less confining our fear will be.  Little steps of faith each day snowball into a dynamic and rich faith that helps us face fear when it comes and it will come.  

Before you start lecturing Christians on fear and faith think about this. A Christian man was crucified by a jihadist group which took control of Yemen’s southerly province of Abyan. The man was crucified on an electric pylon. His bloated corpse showed that the body had been there for several days in the hot middle-eastern sun. A sign above his head stated that those ‘who wage war’ against Allah and the Prophet Mohammed ‘shall be killed or crucified.’ Are you as brave and faithful as you thought you were?

Faith says you may be able to kill me but God can give me eternal life. Faith says I may have to live alone, or walk alone, but I am not lonely because God is my security, God is my companion, and when I am alone, I can commune with God because He surrounds me. Faith says you can take the house, the car, and the job, but God provided them in the first place and, just as He provided them before, He can provide them again. Faith can win over fear, but you must remain focused on God at all times and I am not saying it will always be easy. God did not promise easy He only promise to be with us at all times.

I recently was reminded while dealing daily with health issues, 5 hour brown outs and 12 plus hours of no running water in Davao, Philippines that despite all the suffering that Paul endured, he understood that there was a bigger picture. Looking at that big picture and not focusing on our problems can allow us to feel peaceful even though the waves are crashing around us. What seem to be major daily problems to me did not seem to bother my Filipino neighbors. I discovered that I had begun to walk by sight and not by faith and was allowing the problems I saw rob me of God’s peace.  I was focusing on things (inconveniences) and not God.

It is easy to live in fear today with all the uncertainties we face – fear of economic collapses, fear of terrorist attack, fear of drive by shootings, fear of losing our jobs, fear of having costly medical bills, fear of running out of money before we die, etc. We have gotten so used to living with anxiety and fear that we sometimes forget that there is an answer.  I’ve discovered as my faith increases my fears and anxiety decreases. My faith increases when I focus on God!

I would like to throw in a little non-theological thought to cause us that were born and raised in First World Western Countries to possibly think about another cause of our fear. I have witness the differences first hand in the Third World Countries I have live in among the people. If Western people had something more to live for than materialism and entertainment then we could overcome the fear of hard economic times easier. But, for most Westerners, “building a life” means buying a home, building up a bank account and accumulating as big a pile of possessions as possible. When the good times are gone, very large percentages of Westerner totally lose it and think that life is not worth living anymore.

What about you? Are you going to give in to fear or are you going to have something to live for when and if that day arrives?

I can promise you every individual living today will have to decide how they will respond to the fears we face in our world today. I hope all Christians reading this will remember our Savior Jesus was not a coward he walked boldly into Jerusalem knowing He was about to be crucified. The strength of the Father gave Jesus His strength and He will give us our strength in difficult times. God did not promise us easy He only promised to be us in good and bad times.

I know it is easy to say do not fear and often hard to accomplish it, but faith can ease fear. If you can trust God in good times you can trust God in bad times. We will live in uncertainty in this world, but we do not have to live in constant fear. The degree of fear we have is a choice we make and depends on the amount of faith we have.

Is your Christianity worth you dying for – thousands are dying around the world for Christianity – for their faith. I would imagine the Christians in Kenya, Iraq and Syria are wondering what Christians in First World Countries really have to fear.