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Do Not Be Afraid


“I am God, the God of your father,” he said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph’s own hand will close your eyes. (Genesis 46:3-4)

I've heard that Scripture says "Do not be afraid" 365 times. We're also told not to worry or be anxious and to be courageous.  I suspect I am not alone in my confession that I tend to feel afraid and anxious. I'm a world class worrier. I can worry about nothing, literally nothing. I've caught myself doing what one does when one worries and asked myself what I was worrying about, and failed to come up with any answer.
This morning, I found myself feeling a little afraid about my upcoming surgery. My problem isn't with the idea of the surgery itself. It's dealing with the challenges of recovery. As I examined the situation, a couple things stood out. First, my fear and anxiety here is normal for me. I tend to get this same sense of being overwhelmed whenever I have something to face in the future about which I can do nothing right now.
A second point is that I have faced challenges that made me feel anxious and afraid before. Some I have faced. Others, I have not. I sometimes practice "Avoidance 101" techniques.  There are a few things that affect or control my life. There are places I won't go or move because of spiders. I think I'd rather die than go job hunting or start dating, and sending my writing out to a publisher is almost as bad.
I don't know that I'm actually more afraid of those things than I am of the things I face. When I worked at the library, sometimes people would return books with big, beautiful photos of spiders on the cover. If I immediately grabbed the book, checked it in and put it on the cart, I was fine. If I didn't, if I kept looking at it, it became harder and harder to touch the book. The difference was between feeling afraid, and having (holding, caressing, feeding, handcuffing myself to) fear, between feeling afraid and being afraid.
I don't think it's
either healthy or possible to never feel fear, so I doubt that's what the Bible talks about. But one can make choices about the extent to which one live in the condition or state of fear.
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In the Sky: Lyriad Meteor Shower
On the Calendar:
First Day of Passover
Birthday of :
St. George
James Buchanan
William Shakespeare

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