be afraid

Local TV is salivating.  A snowstorm is coming, one of the first this season.  We're being told, "be afraid, be very afraid".  A newsradio station once said of "fears" like this, "the opposite of fear is facts ... tune in 3,4,5 times a day!"  If information negated fear, the internet should have wiped out fear years ago, since we believe everything that's there.

No, the opposite of fear is faith, and the opposite of faith isn't so much doubt, but fear.  Jesus wasn't a fan of fear.  In a storm on the Sea of Galilee, He was wakened from sleep by His terrified disciples and then said, "Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?" (Mark 4:40)  And when the synagogue leader Jairus was told that his sick daughter had died, Jesus said, "Don't be afraid; just believe" (Mark 5:36).

There's a difference between fear - healthy fear of playing in traffic, or of failing some kind of test - and faithless fear, in which we become "afraid", get so captured by our fears that we forget who we are and who God is.  Yes, we are vulnerable; we are not promised invincibility in this life.  But we do have an invincible God Who promises to be with us, and Who invites us to trust Him and to assent to the Truth He has given us about Himself.  We simply believe that "in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His Purpose (Romans 8:28), including those anxious disciples like me, and you.