Final 2019 Sunday Bible Study: Finding the sweet spot of belief and fear

I was somewhere over the Pacific Ocean when I finished the Bible for the first time. Weeks later, I’d get an email from a man named Matt Sherlock, who is as knowledgeable on the Bible as anyone you or I know.

“You’ve read it all,” the email said, “but know it’s not over.”

I knew then, when I received the email, that it wasn’t over. How is one supposed to absorb the entirety of nearly 700 pages of scripture in a single pass? Yet it wasn’t until I began to read the Bible again, beginning on that same Hawai’i trip, at 4 in the morning — jet lag is a very real thing — with the book of James, that it dawned on me just how far I still had to go.

The first read is, truly, only the beginning. Just a notch below the surface. I began my re-read with all of my favorite books, and what happened was the same thing that happens when you re-watch all of your favorite movies: You pick up on things you missed. Things that seem so obvious the second – or third or fourth – time around that it’s a wonder how you missed it in the first place.

And as I began to pick up on the various elements I missed throughout each book – James then Joshua, the New Testament in its entirety, back to Genesis and Exodus, up to Job, and now back to the Gospels – various patterns decorating the Bible, from book to book, began to appear. Some I had noticed before. But it was only on this second read that one in particular stood out as the motif I’ve seen arise more than any other in the Bible:

Do not be afraid.

It is an incredibly difficult task, to narrow a tome like the Bible into a single lesson. But this is the end of the year, and I’d like my takeaway to be a singularly focused one.

“Do not be afraid” is the one that continued to catch my eye.

I suppose it makes sense. My favorite verse, even prior to reading the Bible, comes from Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Over and over and over again, the Lord commands – not asks, not politely requests, but commands – Joshua to not be afraid. When looking at Joshua’s circumstances, it seems to be a bit self-evident, that to be afraid would be the worst possible thing. Here was the son of a guy named Nun, taking over for perhaps the greatest leader in human history, being charged to lead a slave nation in the middle of the desert, where he’d be commanded to win war after war after war.

It is no wonder God would tell Joshua not to be afraid.

But it doesn’t really matter the circumstance. You’ll find it throughout the entirety of the Bible, whatever book you may open to.

Do not be afraid.

You can find it from Joshua – and before it, in Genesis and Exodus and Deuteronomy, too – to the New Testament. In Mark 5: 36, it is written: “Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, ‘Don’t be afraid; just believe.’”

One chapter later, when Jesus scares his disciples half to death by walking on water, he tells them to “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

I will not find every single Biblical reference advising you not to be afraid. Just trust me in knowing that there are a great many.

“But,” you may ask, “how?”

Being ordered to not be afraid and actually not being afraid is no small task.

The world is not scary in the same way it was when Joshua was leading the Israelite armies across the Jordan and around the desert. It is not scary in the same way it was when the disciples were being persecuted throughout Rome. But our world has plenty of things in it that will inevitably invoke fear.

It is a scary thing for a father to wonder how he’s going to support his family.

It’s a scary thing to be in a hospital room, wondering if your friend or family member is going to make it.

It’s a scary thing to move out.

It’s a scary thing to start a family.

It’s a scary thing to quit your job. Take a chance on yourself.

It’s a scary thing to confront your boss, your friend, your co-worker.

Here, though, is where I want to mark the lines between fear and being afraid. Fear is natural. A good thing, really. It’s your body’s warning system not necessarily to avoid whatever it is that’s causing fear, but to be alert. Inspect it. Turn it over. Take a flashlight to it and really examine it.

Fear can be used for good as oftentimes as it is used for bad.

Being afraid is when that fear is up to no good. Being afraid is when we allow the fear to consume us, and then we act on it, controlled by that primal instinct.

Being afraid is when fear overwhelms belief. It is when we believe more in the fear itself than we do in our abilities to overcome it. Jesus said it, right there in Mark, what the antidote to being afraid is: Believe. For when you believe, and you turn that fear into the all-powerful motivator it is, that’s when some of life’s most beautiful moments begin to happen.

Think of a time you hurdled fear, used it for good. Maybe you took the trip you wanted. Quit the job you hated. Ended the relationship you knew was toxic. Took the chance you had to take.

Even when they don’t work out, they do. Because you don’t have to wonder what if. You weren’t afraid.

You believed.

You took your shot. And the fact that you believed and took your shot gives you a shot of more belief, straight to the bloodstream. It paves the way for more.

It’s a wonderful thing, to believe. And you don’t even have to believe in God, honestly. You can believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy or Aslan or Dumbledore or Edward Cullen, so long as you believe in something. That belief turns fear into a force for good. It turns your life into one of risk-taking and chances, whatever form they may be for you.

I’ve noticed a pattern in my life this year. Whenever I felt those tingles of fear down my spine, I knew it was something I probably had to do, whatever it was.

You bet I was scared half to death to ask Delaney’s parents for their permission to marry their daughter. You bet I was scared to stand up in front of a Mormon church and give a 10-minute talk on faith. You bet I was scared as all get out to get down on one knee and ask Delaney to marry me. You bet I was scared to hop on a flight to China, to play in an FIVB as one of the lowest seeds in the qualifier, no guarantee of anything except for a financial loss and maybe a decent story.

All of these scared me. And, yes, they all worked out more than ok, but even if they didn’t, I wouldn’t have been torn by them. I’d have taken the shot I knew I needed to take, because fear didn’t overwhelm me. It motivated me. It worked in tandem with belief, and when you put those two together, it provides the alchemy for life’s peak moments.

Now, also, may be an important time to mention that it is totally fine to be afraid at times. Because we’re human, and that happens, and it has happened throughout all of human history, to all of our greatest leaders, even the Biblical kind.

Moses was afraid when God told him he needed to lead the Israelites.

“Ask my brother Aaron,” Moses tells him. “He’s the better speaker than me.”

“Who gave man his mouth?” God replied. “Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, I will help you speak and will teach what you are to say.”

It’s only when Moses’ belief in God wanes that fear overwhelms him, and he becomes afraid. Just as it was only when fear overwhelmed Joshua that he became afraid. Joshua, after a good deal of success, had just suffered his first defeat, in Ai, and he freaks out a bit.

“Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground, remaining there till evening.”

Guy loses one battle and face-plants for an entire day!

“Stand up!” God ordered Joshua. “What are you doing down on your face?”

So Joshua stands. He listens to the Lord. He believes again. And when God tells him, 17 verses later, “Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged,” Joshua takes his troops back to Ai and storms the city without losing a single man.

The belief was greater than the fear.

It’s human to feel fear. And when you allow that fear to bolster your belief, to make you turn to your belief rather than away from it, it makes room for the divine.

Moses felt fear.

Joshua felt fear.

Yes, even Jesus felt fear – or I’d assume he did – when he was nailed to the cross, crying to God, wondering why he had forsaken him. But then, in the sixth hour, as it’s written in Luke, “Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed at last.”

And the plan of salvation that God began the day Adam and Eve bit the apple in the Garden of Eden was alas set in motion.

When belief became greater than fear.