Don't be afraid? Jesus, are you serious?

        09.11.25–It still stirs something inside to write that date. 9/11. What a day that was. Really, a terrible day. Like most Americans, I imagine, I had considered us invincible. I never suspected an attack on our own soil. I thought we were too powerful for that. But that illusion came crashing down along with the towers that day.

And I think the impact on our country is being felt severely to this day. Since then, we’ve lived mostly in a state of fear. We fear “the other” and what their race or skin color or lifestyle might mean for us. We suspect it will cost us our way of life. So our politicians govern by fear. Many preachers fill up their churches by the use of fear. And fear is easy to stir up. Rupert Murdoch has made himself even richer through the fear Fox News inflames. On the other side of the aisle, MSNBC is doing quite well financially, also.

And now we live in a country where we’re all afraid of the ones who are not like us, who worship differently or not at all, who vote differently, and who live a different lifestyle than we do. Along with the fear comes a drive to force one way of thinking, of living, of voting.

What we now have is a country full of scared and angry people, some of whom are armed and shouldn’t be, the ones who use their weapons to kill the ones who live or vote or think differently. Some of them genuinely believe they are doing God’s work by doing so. It’s hard to understand how anyone who has truly encountered Jesus could think that way.

We have fear and anger in spades. What we don’t have is the faith of Jesus, who said on several occasions to people who were very afraid, “don’t be afraid.” “Fear not, for I am with you.”

And I’m making an important distinction here, from the teaching of Dallas Willard, between faith in Jesus and the faith of Jesus. As Willard pointed out, the disciples in the boat on the stormy sea had faith “in” Jesus. They woke him up because they believed he could do something about the storm. But they did not have the faith “of” Jesus, who was able to sleep in that storm because he believed he was safely in his Father’s care.

Instead, we demonstrate by our words and actions that we believe Jesus is simply out of touch with our situation. “Don’t be afraid? Are you serious? Don’t you understand what will happen to us if “those people” get their way?” I feel that fear every day and inflame it all the more with a news feed that is almost entirely bad news. It does not result in the faith of Jesus.

What will it take for me, for us, to stop living by fear and start living as though Jesus actually knew what he was talking about and we can trust him fully? For me, I don’t think it means to stop reading the news. And it doesn’t mean we stop protesting wrongs that are done. But it probably means spending as much time talking to God and listening to him as I spend reading the news. It surely means slowing down and paying attention and asking myself important questions, like “Why are you so angry? and “What are you so fearful of?” And to hear his voice saying, “Don’t be afraid.”