5/6/2025 Word Count – 1,179 Reading Time – 5.25 minutes

Recently a good friend and I were having a conversation about my current writing block. The idea of fear was brought up, which lead to a conversation about the importance of removing fear from our lives and the damage fear can cause to our reasoning.

My concern about my writing is, in sharing my thoughts on spirituality, I tend to write in a stream of consciousness. Although I try to rely on Biblical Scripture as a starting point there are times when ideas seek to fill the gaps. In doing this I run the risk of allowing any errant thoughts I have to influence the doctrine of others. My friend’s perspective was that I am overly concerned about this and that, in fact, I am fearful in this regard. To drive home the point my friend reminded me that there are several Bible passages referring to fear and most of them admonish readers not to fear.

While it is true that God, through the Bible, tells us not to fear. But then He also tells us we should fear. After a bit of digging, I discovered that we are told not to fear man or the devil but to fear God. So, the challenge is to accurately apply that to our daily decision making and worldview.

I’ve decided that in the case of my “fear” of misleading people with my writing I choose to look to the following verse:

Psalm 2: 10-12, which states, “Now therefore, be wise o kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son lest He be angry and you perish in the way when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are those who put their trust in Him.”

In the above Psalm I believe it is Jesus who is speaking. The preceding verses, 7 – 9, are written in first person. They tell of how God has declared Him His Son and given Him the nations as an inheritance and the ends of the earth for His possession. There is nothing in -the transition from verses 7-9 into verses 10 – 12 that indicates the speaker has changed.

My reason for writing this blog is to help people who are Christians seeking to understand God and Jesus better, as well as to give people who may not be believers but have an interest in Christian thinking some insights into ideas and thinking that may not be mainstream. I am attempting to be of some service to God’s cause. I certainly don’t consider myself a king or a judge, but I still feel the part about serving the Lord with fear applies to anyone who attempts to serve in more limited capacities, (much more limited in my case).

Even though I look at myself as a provider of thoughts and perspectives on my personal spiritual journey with the hope that my thoughts will induce others to think, I do not have a desire to influence the choices of others except in terms of adopting and growing in the Christian faith. Nevertheless, I accept that I may have some influence over thoughts and perspectives, and by reason, may be influencing decisions of others, which kind of makes me look like a teacher. I am therefore subject to the scriptures regarding that position. James 3: 1 warns, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” Then in 2 Timothy 2:15 we are told to, “Make every effort to present yourself approved to God, an unashamed workman who accurately handles the word of truth.”  To me these are cautionary verses, meant to provide advice and help the reader avoid danger. If one has no fear of the consequences warnings have no meaning and cannot be of any help to the hearer.

God built Humans with physical and emotional devices that rely on fear to avoid danger and its consequences. Granted, fear is designed to provide enough caution to enable one to avoid calamity. Dwelling on that fear beyond its service can create many phobias which lead to anxiety and many other emotional and psychological disorders. Fear immobilizes. Embracing fear immobilizes a person for longer than it is necessary, or useful. Consequently, fear is a tool that is to be managed. A tool can be clumsy and dangerous if the wielder doesn’t understand the tool, its purpose, and how to handle the tool. Often, when learning how to manage fear, we are told to ignore or confront our fear. When ignoring or confronting fear means stuffing it deeper in our psyche, we don’t learn how to truly manage fear, we’ve only forced ourselves to put it someplace out of sight. If we ignore it we have only put it in a different room for the time being. Confronting our fear means we have made an enemy of our fear and now every experience of fear is a battle. We are expecting ourselves to conquer our fear by shear strength. Every time we are unable to subdue fear we suffer defeat, until we give up and give in.

I think it’s better to understand our fears. What are we afraid of and why? What triggers our emotions and how rational is our response. Is there a more rational and controlled response?  What are the consequences that our fear is trying to warn us to avoid? If we are going to confront our fears, what are the steps to take so we can win small battles leading to our eventual victory?

There are different categories of fear. Fear of God is not the same as fear of man. Luke 12:4 Jesus says, “And I say to you, My friends, do “not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has the power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!”. If we accept that fear is a cautionary mechanism built into us to provide information that serves to save us from disaster we can examine fear in a somewhat different light than if we understand fear to be an uncontrollable force that induces feelings of panic and disrupts our ability to make rational decisions. Even though fear has different connotations and degrees for different situations and applications it stems from the same root cause but manifests in different ways.

Fear is something that is baked into our being to inform us, not to control us. My friend was right, I have let my concerns (fears?), control the priority I gave my writing. I’ve had time to think about the scope of my concerns and now I will go about dealing with it. By doing so I believe I will be on point in my desire to adhere to God’s instructions to not fear man. In the next post I will attempt to discuss my perspectives on what it means to fear God.