Faith and Fear: Bridges to the Spiritual

Photo by Ian Britton.

Those of you who know me know I can be somewhat of a worrier.
I worry about my kids, my husband, my own health, my extended family . . . the other night, I worried about a lost dog who looked hungry . . . true story.
Sometimes, I find myself worrying about things that are going to happen, and about things that may never happen.
I confess that it is something I struggle with, and I have sought God to learn trust and peace.
There are times I rest in the knowledge that God is God, and I relax.
Then, there are times I try to "help" God by . . . worrying.
Falsely, I believe that I can add an inch here or there, an hour to my life, by fretting.
Which just isn't true.
The Bible even says so. There is a whole passage in Matthew 6 that deals with the subject. It is headed, amazingly,

Do Not Worry 25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28 And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow if thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear.' . . .33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you as well. 34 Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Jesus is so clear, about it. Worrying doesn't change a thing.
So why do I do it?
Is it a lack of faith?
No, not exactly.
It is a choosing what kind of "faith" I am going to have.
In his book Worship As David Lived It, Jusdon Cornwall talks about the tension between faith and fear in a way that is enlightening, convicting and just plain . . . good.
He talks about David fleeing in fear from a jealous Saul to the cave of Adullam when things were not going well for the would be king, and how that was a fear response to his circumstances, and caused him to act like a crazy man to save his own life. He relates this to our own experiences with fear.

David does not stand alone here. All of us will have the "cave" experience, for no matter how lofty God's promises to us may be, the sound of the enemy's javelin can reverse the flow of faith and we become fearful. Fear and faith are exactly the same energy running in opposite directions [emphasis mine]. 'Faith' says, I believe God, and 'fear' says, I believe the enemy. 'Faith' says that God's promises will be fulfilled, but 'fear' declares that the enemy's threats will be realized.

He goes on to say that the spirit world connects to our world by a bridge of faith, and if we have Godly faith, that bridge allows the things of God, his peace and love and joy, to cross over into our lives, our realities; but if we have fear, which is a kind of "faith" also, (like faith's evil twin, so to speak) . . . well, some very different spiritual realizations will cross over into our lives.
I do not want a bridge that allows dark and bad and worrisome things into my mind, my heart, my life.
Fear begets more fear.
Instead I want to live by faith . . . a faith that allows a peace that passes understanding.
Cornwall comes to the conclusion that:

David's fears disappeared when he sought the Lord, for he was no longer running from Saul; he was running to God. All his spiritual energies were being released in faith instead of in fear. God's answer to fear is action, for the loss of fear is not the loss of danger or change of circumstances; it is a focusing of our energies back to God and moving to Him instead of merely moving from something.

So, when I am smoothing my son's brow, which is burning with fever; when Joe walks out the door to go to work at a job that is dangerous; when I watch the news about the economy and health care and a mad man shooting up Ft. Hood; when I think of the future, I need to be moving toward God in faith. I need to rest in Him, and in the knowledge that He is so much bigger than all of it. Than me.
Saul was real.
He was an actual danger to David.
David had viable reasons to be afraid.
But hiding in a cave was not the answer. And it is not the answer for us, either (as much as I wold love to find a nice, quiet, dark, well hidden cave some days).
"God's answer to fear is action . . . "
The answer is to build a bridge.
A bridge of faith, formed prayer by prayer, trust by trust, confession of faith by confession of faith, one step after another, in the direction of God.