Fear

The horror writer H. P. Lovecraft says that "the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." While I'd disagree that fear is the strongest emotion, it's surely one of the strongest. What else can get your heart racing (and your feet pounding!) the way fear does?

This must be why we're all interested in getting rid of our fearful feelings. Anything that promises to make fear less -- fearful? -- is going to get a lot of attention. And there are many ways of coping with fear out there.

Let's start with the easier ones. It's possible to get rid of some fears (or at least to tone them down) through psychotherapy. A good counselor, drugs, or both, can do a lot to take the sting out of certain fears -- especially ones that are irrational or overblown. There are exercises you can do to take down your fear level, step by step.

Other fearful feelings you can deal with by planning ways to avoid the thing feared or else finding ways to minimize their impact. For example, if you have a fear of catching the flu, you can get a flu vaccine, stay out of crowds, and wash your hands a lot. If you are afraid of having a car accident, you can take professional driving lessons to become the best driver you can be. If you fear darkness, you can install nightlights and motion sensors.

So far, so undisputable. You probably knew all this already! The real problem comes when we're dealing with things that really are scary -- rational fears -- and they're the kind of thing you can't avoid, no matter what you do. Examples would be pain, betrayal, loss, serious illness, and the biggie, death. It's totally rational and totally human to be scared of these things -- in fact, we tend to be suspicious of people who claim they are not afraid of them! And these fears eventually become reality for everybody who lives long enough. Nobody gets out of pain or loss. Most often serious illness comes to everybody who doesn't die suddenly first. And no one gets out of this life alive. Well, depending how you look at it ....

Of course, there are always people who think they are exceptions. Some people try to convince themselves that these things are not really scary, but no amount of mental work has managed to erase these fears from humankind. Some try to convince themselves they are going to be the first to avoid them (as in the advertisements which say "if you die" rather than "when you die"), which is ridiculous as it flies in the face of all history and experience. Some people do their darndest not to think about them, either through busy-ness or drinking or drugs or some other distraction. Which only works as long as you keep drinking, stay busy, and so on.

For these real and unavoidable fears, Christians believe that we need God's help. That's because God can do what we can't do -- He can either avert or remodel the experience we're afraid of. For example, the fear of being utterly destroyed -- either of being annihilated or of winding up in hell. That's something God can and does avert. He promises to remove it as a threat altogether -- it's not something those who trust in Him need to worry about anymore. Averted, gone, vanished.

Physical death is a different thing-God normally doesn't avert it altogether, but instead he remodels it. He changes it, so the experience is no longer all about destruction. Instead, it becomes a gateway into His presence -- and He promises to reverse death entirely at the end of the world when He raises people from the dead.

What about experiences like loss and betrayal? Those are also a case of remodeling. As Christians, we're aware that we're still going to suffer them -- belonging to Jesus isn't a "get out of trouble free" card. If anything, it's the reverse; sometimes life gets harder. And yet terrible as such experiences are, they have a different impact on Christians, because God has been at work in us, remodeling the way we think. Losing a loved one is still terribly painful, but it's less fearful when we are sure we're going to see that person again someday. Being betrayed is horrific, but it doesn't have to lead us to doubt our own self-worth the way it once did. This is because our self-worth is now based on our position as God's much-loved people. This makes the fear of betrayal a little bit more manageable.

Basically what God gives us in the face of these scary experiences is a strong rock to stand on -- a safety, a security knowing that He has us in His care. He is still paying attention to us, and no matter what happens, He will stay with us and ultimately bring us out of the experience without us being destroyed. It changes things, knowing you have Someone like that on your side. Have you ever noticed that it is easier to face fear when you have someone with you who cares? God's presence is a major gift He gives to those who trust in Him. We are not alone with our fears, and that makes it easier to bear them.

Written by the THRED Team

What do you think? Has your fear level or the level of fear of those near you been a little on the high side lately. I guess that's what a global pandemic can do.

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Self-Control

Self-control is one of those things we all wish we had more of. For a lot of us, it's food; for others, it's video games, or texting, or constantly refreshing Twitter. For some of us, it gets to the point where there's an actual addiction involved, and then our problems get even harder to deal with.

But self-control goes beyond just dealing with temptations to pleasure. Ever try to live with someone who has a hair-trigger temper? Or people who can't seem to control the negative words that come out of their mouths (leading you to look around for the duct tape)? Self-control is what makes living with other people bearable; it's what makes living with ourselves something better than a long string of embarrassments.

So what does Christianity have to say about self-control? Is there anything useful in the Bible for all of us who struggle with this challenge?

Self-control is one of the virtues the Bible says results from God's work in us (see Galatians 5:22-23). In fact, the exact words are "the fruit of the Spirit" (meaning God's Holy Spirit, who lives in everyone who believes in Jesus). Self-control for Christians is both the same and different than how it is for everybody else, because of God's work in our lives.

Let's start with "the same." Like everybody, Christians have desires and needs, impulses and goals, and we need self-control to make all of these things work together in harmony in our lives. Also like everybody else, we all know that we don't have enough self-control. We mess up daily. And so we're all looking for ways to grow in this area.

There are a lot of self-help books and instructions that give good advice on how to develop better self-control, and anybody -- Christian or not -- can benefit from that. But God offers people help that goes beyond "try harder" or "try smarter." Because that advice, however great it is, still leaves us trying to do it on our own. And that's incredibly hard.

But to anybody who is willing, God says, "Let Me help you. Let Me do more than give you advice from the outside. Let Me come and live inside you, within your very being, and remake you into the person you were always meant to be." That's the beginning of an awesome but sometimes painful process that takes the rest of our lives. God's Holy Spirit starts working on different areas of our lives that need help, and they're not always the same areas we want God to focus on right away! And then, sometimes quickly, sometimes with agonizing slowness, He makes changes. And one of these areas is self-control.

"But," you might be asking, "I know plenty of Christians and some of them sure don't look like they have any self-control!" Yes, you're right, and we're sad about that. God offers and creates change, but it's always possible for us to reject what He's doing -- to say "No!" to the change -- to go on in the way we've always done. And some people choose to do that. Others are at the very start of their Christian journey and haven't gotten very far down the road yet. Still others are starting from a point that is so much worse than where you are at the moment, that when you look at their lives, you think they haven't made any progress at all (unless you happen to know the person they used to be).

Or you might wonder, "But isn't it true that my Christian friends just find it easier to control themselves, because they don't have very strong urges? Maybe they're just naturally that way. Maybe X is just a nice person." Um, no (cue laughter here). Christians struggle with exactly the same issues you do, and our urges and temptations are just as strong. It doesn't come naturally to us. But we do have one big thing in our favor; we have God's help. And you can have it, too.

This is why Christians can't really take credit for the times when they do succeed in self-control. It's not really about us. In fact, I stand in awe of some people I know who aren't Christian but who have great self-control. That isn't me, and it never will be me. I need more help. I need God's Holy Spirit. And fortunately, God offers to give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks Him (see Luke 11:13).

Written by the THRED Team

Self-control.

During this time of quarantine you may be finding your capacity for self-control stretched to the limits. How are you handling it so far? What do you do to maintain focus and serenity now? What are your problem areas?

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You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.