Quick. What is, by far, God's most frequent command?

The usual suspects include "Do not commit adultery," "Have no other gods before me," and "Love one another." The next group includes whatever commands you know you have violated, in which case they only feel as if they appear on every page of Scripture.

The actual answer is, "Do not be afraid."

The God Who Cares

"Don't be afraid." "Don't worry." They can be said so casually. I have said them to my wife when we have been on airplanes together and her palms were sweating before takeoff. My words, of course, were meaningless. They veered off into self-serving platitudes because I didn't really want to hear about her fears. Already engrossed in the flight magazine's crossword puzzle, I didn't want to be bothered. But God's words are nothing like my own.

Think about it. God never says anything just to get you off his back. The sheer number of times he speaks to your fears says that he cares much more than you know. He is not so busy that he attends only to macro-level concerns. Instead, he is close and speaks to the details of your troubles.

Do your troubles seem trivial, at least when compared to the dangers other people face? He knows you and has compassion. He does not compare your worries to those of others, decide which ones get priority, and then give everyone a number based on need.

The way he repeats himself suggests that he understands how intractable fears and anxieties can be. He knows that a simple word will not banish our fears. He knows that our worries aren't patiently waiting for permission to leave.

Our fears are not trivial to God. "Do not be afraid" are not the hollow words of a fellow passenger on a sinking ship, who has no experience in shipwrecks, can't swim, and has no plan. These words are more like those of the captain who says, "Don't be afraid. I know what to do."

When the right person speaks these words, you might be comforted. Remember, he is the sovereign King who really is in control. The efficacy of the words is directly related to the authority, power, and love of the One speaking them.

Controlling Fear

There are two things you should know about fear or worry.

First, like any strong emotion, it wants to be the boss. It wants authority. It claims to tell us how life really is, and it won't be easily persuaded otherwise. If my experience of fear says that there is danger and you say there isn't, my fear wins. If my experience of fear says that there is danger and God himself says he is with me, my fear wins. Fear doesn't trust easily. It tenaciously holds onto its self-protecting agenda.

Second, when fear escalates, it wants relief and it wants it now. Fear is impatient. It will alight on a promising treatment, give it a few seconds, then flit to something else without ever returning. Fear has tried God, and God didn't work. To reconsider God goes against fear's manic style.

Why highlight this? Because one of the first steps in combating fear and worry is to slow down. "Be still" (Ps. 46:10 NIV) is another of God's exhortations to fearful people. Quiet! is the way some have translated it, and you can understand why.

A Personal Proposal for Fear

You can't blame fear for wanting a place of peace and rest, and wanting it fast. The odd thing is that fear and anxiety are running away from something, but they don't know what to run to. They know danger, but they don't know where to find peace and rest.

If fear slows down for a minute, it realizes that peace and rest can only reside in someone rather than something, in people rather than pills. A fearful child wants to sleep with her parents. On a walk through dark woods, our fears ebb in the presence of a companion—in a pinch, we will even settle for a small dog.

Over the short run, anything alive will do, but we prefer an actual person who is big and strong. If the threat is to our bank account, we prefer someone rich. If our sense of well-being is at risk, we want someone who loves and affirms. Fear calls out for a person bigger than ourselves.

Then, just as fear and anxiety are about to embrace another human being who almost fits the bill, they remember that people are unreliable. Fear quickly hits the default switch and opts for independence, control, and self-protection. The problem is that our worries and fears remind us of our own smallness, so to rely on ourselves takes us back to where we started. But what else can we do?

At this apparent cul-de-sac, we find God. If you are jaded because you feel as though God has been unreliable, look at it this way: There are no other choices. Other people can't quite be trusted, and we are not in control. That limits the field to God himself. The greatest possibility for rest and comfort lies in the knowledge of the true God.

So here is the proposal: let fear point us to the knowledge of God, and let the Spirit of God, by way of Scripture, teach us the knowledge of God. If fear is a personal matter, we must set off to know a Person.

Seeing God in a New Light

There are two different ways of saying, "Don't be afraid." One is as an edict to be obeyed, in which case it is a peculiar edict. It sounds like the King actually cares about us.

He isn't ordering us to make bricks without straw. Instead, it sounds as if he wants his people to know peace. So, even when seen as an authoritative command, this reveals something lovely about God. Unlike other kings, at least those who have despotic authority, God knows the concerns of those in his realm and commands things that are in their best interest. Still, that is a severe way to understand "Do not be afraid."

Here is the other way: "[Jesus said] 'Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom'" (Luke 12:32). No king inserts "little flock" into an inviolable command. No king talks about being "pleased" to give anything, let alone the kingdom itself, to his subjects. Jesus is invoking kingly imagery, indeed. But the One who sits on the throne is the Father, and that changes everything.

I would do anything for my children, within the bounds of wisdom and love. I would sacrifice (and have done so) time, money, and anything else necessary for their welfare. And I am just an ordinary, somewhat selfish father. If there is anything good in my fathering, it is because I mirror something of my good Father.

When Jesus spoke about God as our Father, we can refer back to the entire Old Testament record of his fatherly care. Jesus summarizes the Old Testament story in his remarkable parable of the prodigal son.

In the ancient Near East, the children's job description was to enhance the reputation—the glory—of the father. The father cared for the children and blessed them so they could continue the family line. The children honored the father by loving and obeying him.

In the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-20), this child was not a dutiful son. To make matters worse, the father was a prominent person who lived in a culture where everyone was watching. The actions of the son would and did bring great shame.

Who could have predicted that the father, on hearing the news that his son might be returning, would run to meet him? Important people don't run anywhere. That's the job of servants. If an important person ran toward anyone, it would be undignified and, in this case, compound his shame.

This father, however, threw reputation to the wind. He wasn't interested in meeting his son halfway, even though that would have been embarrassment enough to a normal father. In his delight, he ran until he embraced his bedraggled son and kissed him. This is a story that the Father gave us to help us understand him better.

Now consider that the Father is also the King. As Father, God comes close to you. He knows your needs, and you take comfort in his love. As King, he sovereignly reigns over his kingdom, and his bidding will come to pass. You take comfort in his power.

If he is going to speak effectively to your fears, he must be both loving and strong, and indeed he is. Yet there is more. He is generous.

"Your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom." Fathers can give begrudgingly, and kings can give simply because they made an oath, but God gives out of his pleasure and delight.

Sound too good to be true? No one could invent a god who, in response to rebellion, is so generous that he gives his entire kingdom. Since this is too good to be true, it must be true. This, indeed, must be the Holy One.

All this inverts our normal way of thinking. We tend to judge God's words by our own feelings and sensory observations. If we feel orphaned, we believe we are orphaned. If we feel a sense of impending doom, the worst will in fact happen. If we are told that God reigns, but everything seems to be in chaos, we twist God's revelation about himself to fit our understanding of the data.

Scripture, however, reveals the things we can't see with the naked eye, and God's self-revelation is a higher authority than our feelings. When our feelings conflict with God's communication, we must side with God's interpretation.

A Replacement for Fear

The emphasis in Scripture is, "When I am afraid, I will trust in you" (Ps. 56:3). The issue isn't so much whether or not we are afraid and worry. Scripture assumes that we will be afraid and anxious at times. What is important is where we turn, or to whom we turn when we are afraid.

The God who calls you to trust in him when you are afraid will spend a great deal of time showing you that you can trust him. He doesn't ask you to live with your eyes shut. Faith is not blind.

Faith is about knowing God in an intimate, personal way and trusting him because he is trustworthy. Faith sees more, not less. And the more we see of God, the more we will think about him rather than our fears.



From Running Scared. Published by New Growth Press, Greensboro. Copyright © 2007, 2008 by Edward T. Welch. Used by permission. All rights reserved.