Fear Is A Liar

At dinner the other night, the youngest and more mischievous of my two sons, the one who constantly loves having his sharp sense of humor center stage, informed the family he'd been reading up on who exactly was most vulnerable to this Corona Virus. He then turned to me, looked me straight in the eyes and declared, "there's really only one person in our family who needs to be afraid of this virus."

His point was, that by at least a decade, I'm the most elderly of our household population....

I allowed him his laugh. Coughed and spit up a little old man chuckle of my own. And then informed him, buddy, don't you worry about me. If that virus takes me out, I'll be dancing with Jesus. And then, I'll be the happiest person of this household population!!

I was somewhat joking with the boy. My main objective was to give him a fearless response - because I know we're in times when it would be easy for our kids to be filled with just that: fear. How much of it fills them will be largely determined by how much of it they see around them.

But the truth is I'm not afraid. I do know fear is a liar. Don't mistake that for "not concerned" or "not taking protective measures" - they are not the same.

Fear is a liar. I know that's a big basket of inspirational and motivational you can do this sort of cheerleading. The reality is, though, fear IS a lie. God didn't give us a spirit of fear. That's biblical, but also scientific.

Our brains were created to tolerate about 20 minutes of stress at a time. Just enough time for us to respond to something scary, to protect ourselves, and then settle back into a fearless state. In times like these, though, it's easy to allow ourselves to feel fear and stress for far longer than those 20 minutes we're designed to tolerate it.

2 Timothy 1:7 tells us: For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

We're told here that yes, fear is a lie, but God also lovingly shares the tools we have to deal with it.

Power - I think it's a powerful starting place to know that when we are sitting in fear in these times - it's powerful to know that feeling is a lie. It doesn't make it "unreal" - but it does make it untrue. Fear speaks things into us that aren't helpful, it makes us look at a situation with hopelessness and helplessness. It makes us give up instead of fight on. When you start at a place of knowing something isn't real, you can begin to more quickly move to a place that is.

Love - Your fears and my fears, they are most eased by love. When we take on one anothers' burdens in love, we are actually attacking the untruths of fear. When you're trying to decide, should I sit around and worry and stock up toilet paper and settle into a doomsday frame of mind, or should I reach out to a neighbor or co-worker and simply check on them - "hey, how is your toilet paper supply" - just know this is telling yourself AND them - fear is a liar.

Self-Discipline - When you know fear is a lie, and when you know the best way to attack it is through love, then practicing that love daily, being disciplined in attacking fear with it, you are suddenly attacking fear with a weapon that will ultimately take it down.

In my opinion, this virus is a dauting enemy. But far more worrisome to me is fear - our collective fear stands a far greater chance of destroying us than this virus. The good news is for fear, there is already a vaccine.

It's love.

Just some words from one of the most vulnerable of us