Fear: Friend or Foe?

In John Mayer's song, "The Heart of Life" he says, "Fear is a friend who's misunderstood. But I know the heart of life is good." (go listen to it. seriously.) Now, I'm no expert, and certainly not the best interpreter of songs and poems, but to me this song has a very biblical message. When I listen to this song, the "heart of life" is referring to God. Which got me to thinking more about the line "Fear is a friend who's misunderstood", and who we should be living for.

Most people don't think fear is a good thing. I'd like to think differently. The bible talks a lot about fearing both man and God. Fear of man consists of things like peer pressure, co-dependency, jealousy, or trying to please people. On the other hand, the fear of God is simply understanding and being aware of His approval or disapproval. So who should we be afraid of? The bible says we should fear God. Proverbs 29:25 says, "Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe." If you walk around worrying about what the guy next to you thinks, then realistically your heart isn't following God. Instead, you are trying to please man. But pleasing man isn't always a good thing. Yes it's nice to do the dishes for your parents or offer to help someone across the street, but on a deeper level we should be thinking about the reason why we are offering our services. Is it because you want praise from your parents or to win an award? If it is, then your motives are wrong. God wants our actions to glorify Him, not the people in your life. John 12:42-43 says, "Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved praise from men more than praise from God."

It's so easy to want to please the people around us because God isn't there to give his approval. Not only that, the feeling of rejection hurts. A lot of people want the Christian status, but don't have a desire to live it out because that means being different and living different. Sometimes the only time we are able to tell someone is even a Christian is because we see them in a church. The problem is, a lot of us forget that Jesus lives in us. That means everything we do should be for Him...not just everything we do on Sunday. If you live one way on Sunday, and then the rest of the week you live how you want, it won't go unnoticed by the people around you. That has huge potential to bring people away from the real gospel. Galatians 2:11-21 addresses this issue. Peter, a follower of Jesus and a teacher in the Church, acted like a hypocrite in front of Paul and James out of fear of what they, as well as the others around, might think of him. When Paul witnessed this, he called him out in front of everyone then and there. Honestly, it's rather encouraging to read about this event. It shows us that even Christians get caught in the trap of fearing men. It also shows us that it is important to speak up if you witness this occurring. Had Paul not spoken up, people would have been led astray. Galatians 2:20-21 tell us this, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" The world around us influences us so much. But putting your faith and trust in God, not men, will prove to be worth it in the end. Honestly if you have no desire to live like Christ after accepting him as your savior, then accepting him in the first place was useless. God calls us to live a certain way. It may be hard, but nothing worth it is easy.

In my own life this is a constant struggle. A lot of my friends are not Christians. When I go to hang out with them, it's really hard to not engage in the activities they are doing. About a week ago, I made the decision to separate myself for good from these activities and it has been SO hard! I don't want my friends to think I am weird or to uptight for them. I also don't like it when they tell me "it's no big deal, you can still love God and do it." What they don't understand is that it's not that easy. Every time I hung out and gave in, I walked away feeling ashamed. Ashamed at myself for giving in, and most of all ashamed at what God thought of me. I thought that he couldn't possibly love me because I was intentionally sinning. I felt absolutely awful that I had told my friends about God and my reasons for quiting, and then went and did it anyways. What would God think? And then the feelings of guilt and shame set in. This "feeling" is the fear of God. I became very aware of what was right and what was wrong in His eyes. And to my surprise, my desire to quit became so much stronger. Not because of what my friends thought, but because I didn't want to disappoint God any longer. I won't sit here and tell you that I don't think about giving in every day, but I will say that the feeling I get when I do give in is one of the most awful feelings in the world! The fear of God is what should drive me, not the fear of man. I feel like learning this the hard way is making my faith in God much stronger. I'm being forced to rely on Him in literally every situation so I don't make the decision I want to make. As I continue to learn more about fearing God, it is becoming evident that in order to escape fear, you need to learn how to fear. Getting through life is going to seem a lot harder than it should if man is holding you back. God wants to lead you. I feel like learning how to fear God is a great place to start!