Fear and Our Faith
Can you trust what you believe?
What do you think of when you hear the word believe? How would you describe the concept to someone else? Make a short list in your head of words or phrases you would associate with believe.
Now, if you had to describe another word — trust — what would you say? Make another list, and then put them side-by-side.
If you’re like most people, believing focuses mainly on ideas. It includes things like doctrines, belief statements, philosophical concepts or theological propositions. They are predominantly abstract, theoretical and cognitive. In that sense, believe is usually an act of the mind.
Trusting, on the other hand, focuses on people and/or things. Trust is much more pragmatic and concrete. It deals with things that are tangible and objective. You might say trust is an act of the heart — or maybe even better, of the gut.
I don’t mean to argue semantics, but there is a difference in how we treat concepts of belief and trust. Spiritually speaking, we spend most of our energies living in the belief world, not the trust world. The American church talks about God. We honor morality; we learn theological or biblical facts that support a philosophy. Belief is acquired.
It’s not that these are bad, in fact they are necessary — but they aren’t applied. We celebrate belief at the exclusion of trust. There are a great many concepts in our faith, but there are only a few things in life that we genuinely trust. Trust is far too scarce in our lives, and it is far too rare a discussion in most conversations about God.
Fear and Trust
This is important to get our hearts around, because fear doesn’t attack our belief — it attacks our trust. Fear cares little what we think of God, but it is relentless when it comes to cracking our trust in God.
Fear attacks the things we identify with, the things we relate ourselves to and the things we allow to influence us. It attacks our relevance, our vulnerability and our willingness to submit, which are all actions that require deliberate actions of trust. In that sense, fear isn’t a faith issue. Fear is a trust issue.
Trying to deal with fear on a rational, intellectual level will have absolutely no effect. In fact, it will embolden our fear.
Remember, fear isn’t a rational emotion. There’s no rational reason why someone would be afraid to step into a small closet and close the door, yet many are. And the more a claustrophobe tries to convince herself they shouldn’t be afraid, the more afraid she becomes.
Fear isn’t rational, it’s just real.
And so trust must also be real. When our trust in God and in other people becomes real, fear cannot get a foothold. As we trust, we experience relevance. We come to know the power of human connection. And we begin to experience a mutual submission we never before thought possible.
We can now be transformed.
questions.4.conversation
- Name some things or people in life that you truly trust? How did you come to trust in them? What makes you continue to trust in them?
- What thoughts about God or Jesus do you find to be most intriguing, compelling or comforting? Has there been an event or a situation in which those thoughts were put to the test?
- When you read the story of Peter joining Jesus out on the water (Matthew 14.22), what do you learn about Peter’s trust in Jesus? What does that say about his belief about who Jesus really was?
- Is knowing that Jesus is bigger than any storm the same as trusting in him in the midst of the storm?
- Can you identify a situation or condition in which you feel irrelevant? Now, is there something or someone you are not trusting that might be contributing to that?
- How about the same question as it relates to vulnerability? Or how about submission?
- How can we encourage one another to grow our trust in God? What can we do — together — to practice trust, and not practice just belief?
Coming next: Jesus and fear.
