Some years ago there was a national study of people’s fears. Thousands of people were asked what they feared most? The pollsters were sure they already knew the answer: The fear of dying would rank number one. But they were wrong! When all the data were in, the fear of dying was a distant second. People’s greatest fear by far was the fear of speaking in public! In other words, most people would rather die than face an audience!
My brothers and sisters, fear is no stranger to any of us. In many shapes and sizes it regularly arrives on our doorstep all uninvited. It has the power to rob us of the best parts of life, the power to steal whole days, weeks, and years from us, and the power to lock us up in narrow places behind grey walls. In fact, unchecked and prolonged fear in our lives can lead to one of the most prevalent undiagnosed problems of psychological unrest for millions of people in our world - clinical depression.
Yet, even in the face of dangers that are truly life-threatening, fear can take control of us only if we let it, that is, only if our inner self is out of order and in disarray.
In his words to us about fear, Jesus is really talking to us about what may be out of order in our inner selves. He’s urging us to attend to our unfinished inner work so that fear will have no power to invade our hearts and wound or paralyze us.
So what is this unfinished inner work of ours? It varies from person to person, but it always hinges on two things: what we see when we look at ourselves (which may not be what’s actually there!), and what we see when we look at God.
When we look at ourselves, if we’re blind to any part of the goodness that God has put in us, we’re opening the door to fear and offering it a long-term lease on our life.
If we look within and close our eyes to any part of our dark side and pretend it isn’t there, we’ll end up projecting that darkness outside onto other people who will scare us to death because we’ve made them look so monstrous.
When we look at God, if we fail to recognize how completely God is father to us, or fail to see how great is his power and how unthinkable it is that he would ever abandon us - if we fail to see all that, we are giving fear the key to our lives and inviting it to stay.
What God wants for us all is a wonderful life, free of the fear that can shrivel and kill. He is asking us this very day to see him as he really is, our very dear father, and to see ourselves as he made us, gifted and cherished children who still are in the process of becoming the people God intends us to be.
“Look at what’s right under your nose,” the Lord says to us. “Trust what you see and banish fear from your heart forever.” That is his word to us this day. Let us listen to him and trust.