Reader's Question Regarding Fear

This was a question in response to my post "Acting in Confidence of God's faithfulness" on 4/24/10.

From Tom T.

"Dude, I really like your note about having confidence because God is faithful. I and many other people struggle with having confidence even though we know that the Creator of the universe is with us. In the second to last paragraph you talk about repeated themes throughout the passages and mention "do not fear God because he is faithful". Did you mean to say, "do not fear your enemies/other people because God is faithful"? You know the English and I don't get along very well and I make typos all the time, so I just wanted to point that out for you."

Thanks again for the note!

Until the coming of the King,
Tom"

Hey Tom,

I'm glad to be an encouragement, thank you.

As for your question, Yes, in a way... :D

I suppose how I answer your question depends on what one would describe what it means to fear, on the other hand if one genuinely follows this out, they will neither fear nor fear [men or anything other than God that is]... let me explain.

It seems to me that there is the fear of emotion and the fear of action. For example, some things will give you a feeling of fear or fear of emotion, but you will still stand up against them, like public speaking, asking a girl out, the first time you drove on the freeway, moving away, resisting peer pressure or trying to slay a dragon. Sometimes that fear of emotion will overcome you and will become a fear of action so that you don't give your speech, you don't ask the girl out and never know what could have been, you never go on the freeway and thus never get your license, you become addicted to a destructive substance or habit, or you don't go slay the dragon and thus are never a 'hero' and don't get the girl (just to give us a medieval example :P ).

At the very least what I mean by 'do not fear' is that we are to let nothing produce in us a fear of action (besides God). I see I typed hastily and did not explain myself when I typed "Do not fear God because God is faithful, and trust God because He is trustworthy." because indeed the Bible does say to fear God and [thus] keep His commandments (Deut 6:2; 8:6). That would obviously be a fear of action, and what I meant by my previously quoted line was that our fearing God is actually our trusting God to be faithful to His promises (both of blessing and of curse).

Now, logical speaking if we fully trust God and have no ounce of doubt within us, then I doubt fear of emotion would arise. That is easier to talk about than to practice, but I wonder if David's knees weren't shaking a little when the lion jumped at his sheep, or the bear approached him, or as Goliath mocked him (whether or not was nervous I don't know, but i know I would've been). But then again, emotions are never logical even though mental alignments and perspectives to effect them. Once again, i would say without a doubt this is talking about at least the fear of action, so that the God of Joshua will be the determining factor in any and every action. This means to have 'strength and courage' is more to act than it is to feel.

To answer your question, what I meant by saying that would be closer to: "Do not fear (by actions) your enemies, other people, yourself, or your situation because God is faithful and worth trusting*.

This was a very good question for asking, thank you. Also I appreciate your feedback!

"So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him." ~ Deuteronomy 8:6

For the King,
~Andrew Voigt

*I'm only mentioning trust here and not 'trusting and worth obeying' because I believe that is implied. What it means to genuinely trust God absolutely must cause action in line with that trust(consider James' 'faith and deeds'). The development of my understanding of this came strongly from Scott Hafemann's book "The God of Promise and the Life of Faith" and my personal studies in the book of Joshua. I strongly suggest both Hafemann's book and the book of Joshua :D.