Fear: Do You Live Your Life Afraid?

There was a very good reason that whenever Jesus or an angel suddenly showed up in the Bible the first words out of their mouth seemed to always be “Don’t be afraid!”

Most people, whether they admit it or not, live in fear.

You’re afraid

* someone will hurt you

* someone will hurt your family

* someone will take something that belongs to you

We often live as if life were some cosmic game of Musical Chairs.  We know the music will stop at some point and there are never enough chairs to sit in when it happens.  Thus our journey through life, rather than being one of wonder and joy, instead takes on a form of apprehensive, and preemptive, nervousness; always eyeing a chair that we can nab when the music does stop before someone else gets it.

For Example: The Girl With The Porcelain Doll

I saw a news report yesterday about a neighborhood in California where a number of beautiful porcelain dolls showed up on the doorsteps of some of the houses in the community.  What seemed to concern everyone was that the dolls in some way resembled the little girl who lived at the particular house.

The news clip showed police investigating, frightened parents protecting their kids, and the news host commenting that authorities where confused to whether this was a prank or the work of a “sexual predator”.

Are they kidding? Like the motivation could only be one of those two possibilities!

My immediate thought was “Why is everyone’s first reaction that this is something bad? That the assumed motivation is malevolence?  I bet someone was just being thoughtful and kind.”  

I was right…

In the following news clip on Morning Joe Mika Brzezinski explains that it eventually discovered that the perpetrator was an old woman from a local church who was cleaning out her doll collection.  She thought she’d surprise the girls with an anonymous gift of a doll.

Fear!

I’m not suggesting their are not bad people out there.  I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t be wise.  But I am suggesting that Jesus was right when he said we don’t need to live in fear!

Fear will steal your life and keep it from being filled with innocence, wonder, and awe.

So don’t be afraid!

Peace,

Steve