Fear

FEAR

Fear has two sides: the up side and the down side. You can live under fear or you can live on top of it. The Truth moves you from the underside to the upperside. But there's fear in facing the Truth. If you haven't experienced fear in the pursuit of Truth, I don't think you've ever really pursued it. It's possible to be lost in this world and not even know you are lost. That's a terrible lostness. It's like a man working hard, really hard, to get somewhere and then discovering that it wasn't what he wanted when he got there. So he starts working really hard to get out of that place and on to another place that won't be any more satisfying than the place he left. That's one description of the many ways a person can be lost and not even know that he is lost. But you can also be lost and know that you're lost, or suspect that you might be. A little fear [or a lot of it] kicks in at that point. And that's a very good thing. It's good to be afraid if you don't know what you're doing or where you're going and what's gonna be there when you get there. It's good to have some fear in that situation. John Newton in the magnificent hymn “Amazing Grace” wrote, “Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear.” Think about that for a minute. He was glad he came to a place of fear. But if we face the fear of the Truth—if we don't let that fear stop us from pressing on deeper and deeper and deeper into the pursuit of ultimate Truth—we get to the place where that fear is relieved: “And Grace my fears relieved”. We begin to see that we are at one with the universe that we did not create, thinking with minds that we did not generate, moving around in bodies that are magnificent beyond our ability to understand, in a living world where all life is interdependent and things are in an amazing state of delicate and yet durable balance that makes all life possible, and that this situation does not seem to be at all common in the small portion of the universe that we can glimpse into; like a beetle walking up to the edge of the Grand Canyon. We begin to see that the trait that we esteem most highly in ourselves is what all this is about: Love. And we see something warring against it in our own personalities. And we know this warring faction [let's call it evil, since it works against Love] is important because if it weren’t here we would not be free; and we recognize freedom to be something very good, like Love; and in the same order of things as Love. And so we begin to see that even evil is here because of the Love that has brought all things into existence—the Love that sets creatures free. And even though we see that this evil force is powerful and something to be seriously reckoned with, we need not fear it because it is under the domain of the greater Force of Love—the creative Force from which all has come and in Whose domain we live, move and have our being. We begin to see that this Love is like light, and the evil dark. And light has precedence over dark. And that's when we move to the upperside of fear. That's when we recognize that we don't need the fear to motivate us any more because now we have Love to motivate us—because that's what we have chosen with the freedom that was given to us. And something major shifts and quakes [the angels in heaven rejoice] when we make that decision; and when we decide that we will always and forevermore be continuing to make that decision, because when we decided it, we felt like we'd come home: and indeed we had.

This is how Jesus said these things

“If you continue in my way you will know the Truth, and it will make you free.”

“You are my friends if you do what I command you. This is what I command you: that you love one another, as I have loved you and given my life for you.”

The Bible says that “God is Love.” And that “there is no fear in Love”, but that “perfect Love casts out fear.”

Jesus said [brace yourself!] “I am the Truth.” And He also said to those who believe in Him, “I am in you, and you are in me, and I am in the Father.” The “Father” is the conscious, beyond-all-comprehension, creative core and transcendent sustainer of this universe. In Jesus, we are at one with Him. And there is no fear that does not evaporate in that Light.