Fear Not

Today’s message was written by guest pastor, Rev. Tasha Blackburn.

When I was a child I thought adults were never afraid. In fact, it was one of the things I thought made you an adult: to stop being afraid equals becoming an adult. Of course, I learned that this is not true. Some fears fade but new and bigger ones take their place. Fear is not all bad. At times it alerts us to harm or keeps us from a poor decision. But fear, allowed to run rampant, can hurt us far more than it helps. It can even keep us from God’s love. It reminds me of a passage C.S. Lewis writes in the final book of his Narnia series, The Last Battle. He describes this scene: 

“A group of dwarves are sitting huddled together in a tight little knot thinking that they are in a pitch-black, malodorous stable when the truth of it is that they are out in the midst of an endless grassy countryside as green as Vermont with the sun shining and blue sky overhead. The huge golden lion, Aslan himself, stands nearby with all the other dwarves ‘kneeling in a circle around his forepaws’ as Lewis writes, ‘and burying their hands and faces in his mane as he stooped his great head to touch them with his tongue.’ When Aslan offers the dwarves food, they think it is offal [rotting meat]. When he offers them wine, they take it for ditch water.”

What a powerful image. It calls me to examine where in my own life I let fear bind me in a dark stable when, in reality, I am in a green field with my Lord. Love surrounds me if only my fear will let me see it. The writer of 1 John puts it this way: “Perfect love casts out fear” but its opposite is also true: great fear casts out love, even God’s love.

Whatever you are facing today, please do not allow fear to hold sway. Do not give it the power of keeping you from God’s love. 

Prayer: Lord of love and hope, I am so often filled with fear. Please never let that fear cast out the love I have for you and the love I know you have for me. Take me out of whatever dark place I am and open my eyes to your presence that is right next to me, feeding me and sustaining me even now. In your holy name, I pray. Amen.