Choklit Blog #56: The Fear Infection

  I recently injured myself.  Surprised?  I hope not, because that means you don’t read my blog or know me very well.

  I was at a water park with some friends to celebrate the end of summer.  I mean, all normal teenagers get together to celebrate the fact that school is starting again, right?  Well, we did, and we did it at a water park.  So, in my normal tradition, I injured myself on the least dangerous thing in the entire park: the lazy river.

  Yes.  I skinned my knee on the bottom of the lazy river.

  I managed to walk over to a lifeguard with blood running down my leg and ask for a band-aid, which lasted for a very small part of the day.  For the rest of the day, my skinned knee was completely exposed to... well, everything.  FYI: Water parks are not the most sanitary places in the world.

  A little later that night, right around seven, the pain kicked in.  Before long, I could barely even bend my knee.  I also ate eighteen Twizzlers that night, so my knee wasn’t the only thing in pain.

  For a few days it was like this.  On my first day of school, I was limping everywhere, and I cringed every time I had to sit down or stand up.  Every night before bed, I would take off my old band-aid, put some antibacterial ointment on my knee, and put on a fresh band-aid.  One night I didn’t do that.  I said “Oh well, it won’t hurt to keep the same one on for two days.”  So I did just that.

  The next night, I was really tired and ready to get in bed.  I took off my band-aid to change it, and immediately I knew I wasn’t going to bed any time real soon.  Judging by the look of my knee and the horrible scent wafting through the air, one thing was quite obvious: I had an infection.

  Last night I heard a sermon about fear, and it made me think of that infection.  I mean, I didn’t need a sermon to make me think of my knee since it still hurts, but my mind immediately started making connections between fear and infections.  Crazy how that works.  Anyway.

  Take a look at 1 John 4:18.  “There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”  Conclusion: fear is bad.

  Just like any other negative thing, fear will creep into your life unnoticed at first.  You’re not just going to wake up one day and go, “Man, I’m scared today.”  Do you think Eve woke up one morning and said “I think I’ll corrupt mankind today”?  (FYI: She did not.  Read Genesis 3 for the whole story.)  It’s just like the infected wound: The infection is there, growing, building itself up, but you don’t notice it until five days later.

  By the time you detect this fear, you have to get rid of it immediately.  Otherwise it will cripple you, just like it did to the wicked servant in the parable of the ten talents (and just like my little scratch rendered me unable to bend my knee).  “Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you’” (Matt. 25:24-25, NIV).  In case you don’t know the rest of the story, the servant gets fired for failing to multiply his master’s money--because he was afraid.

  So how do you get rid of it?  Well, let’s look at how I got rid of my infection.

  Step 1: Hot water.  Not a little splash of lukewarm water.  HOT water.  Mark 4:35-41 is a perfect example of this:

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. (NIV)

  Jesus throws His disciples into a crazy storm and scares them out of their minds, then He tells the storm to shut up, and it does!  Why?  Because facing fear head-on is the best (and sometimes only) way to get rid of it.  Once you face your fear and realize someone more powerful than any force on this earth has your back, that fear kind of goes away.  It’s like Romans 8:31 says: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

  Step 2: A powerful antiseptic.  In my case, tea tree oil.  Not fun.  Unlike hot water, which flushes out most of the infection, an antiseptic penetrates deep into the wound and kills any traces of infection that were too set-in to be moved by the water.  It takes time and it may be temporarily painful, but if you let the infection continue to grow, it’ll be way more painful... and that pain will last until you destroy the infection--through a painful process, no doubt.

  So what’s a good antiseptic for fear?  Something that penetrates deep into your soul and rebukes fear.  Any guesses?

  That’s right!  It’s the Bible.  “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12, NIV).  Studying God’s word daily will help to remove those little bits of fear that may still be marinating in the back of your mind.  You most likely won’t like everything you see, and some of it will require you to make, often painful, changes to your life.  In the end, though, you’ll find that it’s much easier than walking around in fear constantly.

  Step 3: Keep the dirt out.  This seems easy enough, right?  For me, it consisted of putting on some antibacterial ointment and a band-aid every day until the wound healed.  In the case of fear, it consists of not murdering people and stealing and doing bad things like that.  Right?

  Wrong.  In my case, I was actually smearing useless white goo all over my knee.  It turned out my ointment had expired ten years ago.

  Romans 8:5-8 says “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”  When we fill our minds with sin, we separate ourselves from God.  Without God, who is there to protect us from our fears?  No one.

  If you remember all the way back in the beginning of this blog, I quoted 1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”  So according to that verse, in order to completely destroy fear, we need love, right?  According to 1 Timothy 1:5, “The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”  You can’t be fearless in a sinful life, just like you can’t be healthy with a dirty cut.