Life’s Too Short To…Fear The Future
Life’s Too Short To…, prt. 6
5/14/2005
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
Do you struggle with fear? Do you worry a lot? Do you have certain issues in life that are so frightening to you that you just have to try not think about them? Can it be so hard to not think about them sometimes that it drains your mental and emotional energy trying to avoid thinking about them? Are you a “what-iffer?” Are you always thinking about everything that might go wrong if you do this or do that? When things are good in your life, do you find yourself feeling like it must just be the calm before the storm – that things can’t really go well for you for any length of time – that very soon it’ll all come crashing down around you? When someone says they need to talk to you or they have news for you, do you assume something is wrong? Do you find that it’s hard to watch the news sometimes because it just seems to give you more to worry about? Do you run mental disaster movies in your mind all the time, playing out different bad things that could happen, and trying to figure out what you might do in each event so that you’ll be prepared to respond?
There was a time in my life not too long ago that I would have answered all of these questions with a resounding YES. My life was controlled by fear, by worry, by anxiety. There were times I spent every waking moment either worrying about something, or kind of generating mental lists of all the fearful things in this world – death, floods, fires, terrorism, earthquakes, killer bees, diseases, wars, tornadoes, terrible mental illnesses like schizophrenia, awful things happening to my children, financial devastation, the end of the world, violent crime – I have devoted countless hours in my life to worrying about each of those things. Let’s face it, the world gives us plenty to worry about. And that’s just this particular world. I can’t even count the number of hours I used to spend worrying about things like sin, going to hell, other people I loved going to hell – the hell thing was a big one for me.
Now by this time you already know whether today’s message is for you or not. You are either sitting in your seat right now thinking, Man, that is totally me, or you’re thinking, “You mean people actually live their lives like that?” Yes, people – many people – actually live their lives like that. If you don’t happen to struggle with worry and anxiety and you’re thinking, “Man, that’s no way to live life,” do you know what? You could not be more right. All of us who have struggled with fear and worry can attest that it’s no way to live life. In fact, life is way to short to live with fear.
Fear is ironic, because to live in fear is to live in a state of concern over things that have potential to make life miserable – like the things I listed earlier. And the irony is that there are few things more miserable than living in that state of concern – feeling anxious and uptight and tense and worried and afraid all the time. And fear of the future is especially terrible because as we sit fearing the future, we transport ourselves mentally into this terrible, scary place as we sit in the relative safety of our living rooms, or lie in our cozy beds and warm houses. Sometimes we fear losing a loved one, and we dwell on that fear until it creates in us a grief very similar to what we might feel had we actually lost them, yet we experience this fear sometimes even as we lie right next to that loved one, blessed by his or her presence, yet blind to the present blessing as we lie there fearing and making ourselves feel the future pain that might, or might not, be coming.
It reminds me of the true story of a 37 year-old man in the Soviet Union who astonished friends and neighbors one day. He had been thought dead for eighteen years, when one day he emerged from under a pile of goat poop shrieking, “I want to work! I want to live!”
His neighbors were astonished by this because they all believed him to have been killed in World War II 18 years earlier. The story, as it turns out, is that on the night he was marching off the war, he deserted, and sneaked home to the hiding place that his parents made for him under the manure pile at the back of the family goat shed. His mother had told him, “Don’t mind the goats and the poop – at least you’ll survive.”
So there he stayed for eighteen years, afraid of coming into the light lest his neighbors and the government find out he had been a deserter. This man had three choices – and he made the worst one. Choice 1: Serve honorably in the army and do your duty. Choice 2: Give in to fear and desert, then go home and face the music. Choice 3: Give in to fear and desert, then give in to fear again and hide in a pile of poop for eighteen years so you can avoid facing the music.
Fear does that to us, doesn’t it? Some people, when life gets too hard or too scary, just desert – they take pills or put a shotgun in their mouth and make an exit. Some do their duties and bravely face the challenges of this life. But many, and I wonder if not most, do not take either route. Fortunately most do not take their lives, but I’m not sure how many face their lives bravely either. I think a lot of people hide under piles of poop all their lives. Too afraid to face the difficulties, even the horrors, of life head-on, they retreat – they begin trying to avoid them – always trying to predict and control things – and always fearful that they cannot. They wind up imprisoned by their own fears, unable to live out the life they were called to – unable to fulfill their purpose, do their duty to God, maybe to their families, maybe to themselves. Parents who live this way often have babies right there in the poop-pile and raise their children to be fearful as well. And on and on goes the cycle.
Life is too short to live it under the poop pile. If you are a chronic worrier, if you frequently fear the future, I am calling you this morning to emerge from that dark, stinky place where you are doing little but marking time – and to come out into the light. It’s not as safe as it might be under the poop pile, but there’s no life for you under there. Think of all the opportunities you have missed because you were afraid to step out. Think of all the precious moments you were unable to enjoy because even looking at people you love causes you sometimes to fear something happening to them. Think of the possibility that God created you for a purpose. No one is meant to live under the poop pile, so if that’s where you’re living, you’re missing God’s plan for your life.
An Indian fable says that a mouse was in constant distress because of its fear of the cat. A magician took pity on it and turned it into a cat. Immediately it became afraid of the dog. So the magician turned it into a dog. Immediately it began to fear the tiger. So the magician turned it into a tiger. Immediately it began to fear the hunter. Then the magician said, "Be a mouse again, you have only the heart of a mouse and I cannot help you."
—Maxwell Droke
That soldier had the heart of a mouse. He was driven to desert by his fear. And he was driven to live in a poop pile for eighteen years by his fear. How has your fear driven you?
This morning I want to talk to people who feel that maybe they have the heart of a mouse – people who seem to always be able to find something to worry about. Let’s take a look at a person like that right now.
Video – Parenthood [1:45:35 – 1:53:07] Last line is “How come she’s sitting in the neighbor’s car?”
Do you know anybody like that? ARE you somebody like that? As I said earlier, I have been a fearful person most of my life. My journey to emerge from under the poop pile has been a long one, and I think there a lot of things that could have helped me that no one ever thought, or knew, to tell me. I will share most of things with you next week, but I want to spend today laying some very important groundwork that will have everything to do with the way you receive what I have for you next week.
As with many things in life, I believe the Bible offers a cure for our worries and our fears. But you will not be cured if I simply stand here this morning and read you some passages in the Bible where God tells us not to fear, not to worry. You already hate worrying, and you would have stopped a long time ago if it were that easy. My friends, I know how to help you.
Modern society and psychology offer all kinds of cures for this problem of worry. We know them by names like Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, and Paxil. Or maybe even names like Valium. Anti-anxiety medications, anti-depressants, tranquilizers – these are the elixirs offered to relieve the worrying, fear, and anxiety that is rampant in a country where most people have disregarded, or rejected, a spiritual way of looking at the world. Remember, I have a counseling background. I know a thing or two about anxiety, both from the awful experience of having fought it for years personally, and from the perspective of a therapist who has helped others confront their own fears.
Better living through chemistry seems to be the American way. Now I’m not going to stand up here and say that Christians should never take anti-anxiety medications. Some of you this morning are taking such medications right now and I certainly do not condemn you. But in the church, we have to be open to the spiritual realities that underlie all physical reality.
John 3:5 (MSG)
5 Jesus said, "You’re not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ’wind hovering over the water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom.
There are spiritual realities that underlie all physical reality. Jesus said the invisible is moving the visible. There’s something behind all of this, not something less real, but something MORE real – something so real that everything we see around us is just kind of a shadow. When Jesus talks about this invisible that moves the visible, I believe in the world he is talking about. I believe Jesus came to teach us about that world.
Now Jesus says the invisible MOVES the visible. What is unseen, what is invisible, what we call the “spiritual world,” has an impact on physical reality. The invisible MOVES the visible. That unseen, invisible reality is called “The Kingdom of God,” – that’s the term Jesus used. God’s kingdom is a real kingdom – it’s just not a physical kingdom, but in God’s kingdom, just like in an earthly Kingdom, there are subjects – people who do the will of the King of that Kingdom. God’s Kingdom is the place where God’s word is the law, where God’s rules are obeyed, and God’s desires are fulfilled. What Jesus says in that passage we just looked at, is if we want to know about the Kingdom of God, if we want to know about this other world, we must first submit to this new life – this new way of looking at the world – understand the reality that there is something invisible behind everything that is visible.
Do you believe that? It’s important whether you believe that because if you do, then you can and must hear everything Jesus says as being true within the Kingdom of God. That’s why so many people say they get nothing out of the Bible, because Jesus came to tell us about life in the Kingdom of God, and a lot of people – even many who say they are Christians – read the Bible not to find out how to live life in that Kingdom, but they read it as a self-help manual, to find comfort and/or advice for living life in this world. Jesus wasn’t interested in helping us find peace in this world – it was this world that nailed him to a tree. Jesus wasn’t interested in helping us worry less, helping us fear less, helping us live better financially, helping us relate better to our families. Hear me out folks, this is huge. Jesus was not interested in helping us live better lives in this world. Jesus was interested in helping us learn what it means to live in the OTHER world – in the Kingdom of God. Because when we learn to live in the Kingdom of God, we WILL worry less, we WILL fear less, we WILL live better and more responsible lives financially, we WILL relate better to our families. Jesus was interested in helping us learn how right now, while we live in this world, we can become citizens of another world – citizens of a world where God is the supreme being, not some president or King, where God’s word is final, not our own, where God’s will is done.
And here is how we get back to fear and worry. Jesus was not interested in helping you with your fears. Jesus was interested in showing you how to live life in the Kingdom of God. And in the Kingdom of God, there simply IS no fear – there IS no worry – there IS no anxiety. In the Kingdom of God there IS no death, no sickness, no pain, no bloodshed. That’s the world God lives in – the Kingdom of God. Jesus came to tell us about that Kingdom. If we don’t listen to what we says and understand he’s instructing us how to live in another world, we will get confused and wonder why his advice doesn’t seem to work very well in this one.
Ever notice that if your two-year-old fears the Boogeyman, you can’t talk them out of it? You can tell them all you want to that there’s no such thing, it’s not real, etc., but it doesn’t matter. Your principles for living don’t work in the world of your two-year-old. You will never, ever talk your two-year-old out of believing in the Boogeyman. But as adults not many of us still believe in the Boogeyman. What happened? We could not be talked out of it, yet we don’t believe in it anymore. What happened, is that at some point in our childhood we traded a child’s world view for an adult’s world view. And there’s no room for the Boogeyman in the adult world-view. It’s not that anyone talked you out of believing in the Boogeyman or fearing creatures under your bed. What happened was that eventually you were able to see the meaninglessness of that whole world view, and there was no longer a place for those fears anymore. That’s exactly what the New Testament tell us about fear, when the Apostle John writes:
1 John 4:18 (NIV)
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.
In other words, there is a world view that rules out fear. There is a principle that renders fear meaningless, where fear no longer makes any sense. That world, that principle, is life in the perfect love of God. As you come to understand that, your fears will begin to subside – there will no longer be room in your world for the fears that seem to rule it right now.
As Christians sometimes, and definitely as non-Christians, we approach our fears like adults trying to talk toddlers out of their fear of the Boogeyman. We tell ourselves that God says not to fear, that Jesus said not to worry, we tell ourselves it’s all okay and that God loves us and we shouldn’t worry – but we still do. Why? Because our world view still includes fear.
Let me illustrate:
There’s a beautiful passage in Matthew 6 where Jesus tells us not to worry. He tells us God takes care of birds and flowers, so he will definitely take care of us. Now normally I’d read this whole passage for you, but today there’s only one thing I care about. Here’s Jesus telling us, “Man, don’t worry about food and clothes and those daily cares in your life.” And he concludes by saying,
Matthew 6:32-34 (MSG)
32 People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works.
33 Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
34 "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.
Jesus says, “Steep your life in God.” “Give your entire attention to what God is doing.”
That’s what we miss. The point is not that Dr. Jesus came to earth to help us stop worrying. The point is that Jesus Christ came to earth to tell us about another way of ordering our lives, another way of thinking, another reality completely. As we come to live in that reality, as we learn to “steep our lives” in that reality, worry and anxiety and fear will fade. They will have to because they don’t exist in God’s world. In other words, there will no longer be room for the boogeymen that still exist in your world. The solution to fear, to worry, to anxiety, is not to keep reading how Jesus told us not to worry, and beat ourselves up until we stop doing it, or to try to talk ourselves our of our fears like we try unsuccessfully to do with children all the time. The solution is to increasingly steep our lives in God’s reality – in who God is and what he is doing in the world – to stop worrying about our worry! To get our mind off it not by taking tons of medications, but by learning that there is another way entirely of thinking about our lives, about our problems.
Do you know that overseas the church is growing like wildfire? And do you know that in those places where the church is growing most rapidly, that’s where you’d think people would have the most to worry about, because the conditions are so terrible? And did you know that in those places of poverty and death and persecution, God’s Kingdom – God’s invisible Kingdom of love and justice and mercy and peace – is creating contentment and joy in the lives of people who enjoy next to none of the material things we enjoy? Did you know that the United States of America holds the world record for the number of people per capita on anti-anxiety medications? In the country where there’s least to worry about, that’s where people are most worried, most tied up in knots. Now let me ask you, where does the REAL poverty exist in this world? Does it exist overseas where God’s Kingdom is breaking in, and people are embracing hope and joy in the midst of utter nothingness – or is the real poverty right here in our backyard – where we are surrounded by expensive fences, live in lavish homes, drive multiple expensive cars, own multiple TV sets and Xboxes and every other toy you can imagine – but are popping pills in fours and fives just to get through the day because we are paralyzed with fear. Where is the real poverty?
Christians in the United States are popping pills for anxiety all the time because we have not learned to steep our lives in God’s reality, and we haven’t learned to do that because we have so many other options, we are so distracted by our busy schedules and our toys and our cars and our money, and – I’m going to say this – our nearly complete absorption with ourselves. We have bought into our culture’s message of individualism. Many want to have the Bible as their standard for living, but are willing to abandon anything in it that does not suit their lifestyle or their political point of view. And so, with that mental framework we approach Christianity, and we attempt to Americanize it. We do this by taking Christ’s words about love and justice and mercy and embracing it and saying that’s what we’re all about, but when we find ourselves worrying excessively, when we find anxiety and fear are overwhelming us, rather than steeping ourselves in God’s reality, God’s work in the world, we just take pills, or go to therapy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that’s always wrong – I’m saying that if we were allowing God’s perspective to shape our lives more and more, taking time to learn to think as God thinks, fear and anxiety in our lives would begin to fade into the background, because as I preached last week, Jesus came to bring freedom, release, recovery of what has been lost in our lives. Jesus said:
John 14:27 (NIV)
27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Are we living lives of peace, of freedom, of release, of good news?
Do you want to counter the culture? Do you want your faith to shine out strikingly to those who know you? What if you would allow your faith to grow big enough to eclipse your fears of the future? How do you do that?
You do it through what the Bible refers to in Romans as a renewing of your mind (Romans 12). We must learn to think differently. We fear because we do not know how to think of ourselves, our world, and our place in it. We strive to meet our own needs because we do not know how to think of God and who we are because of God. We have lost our way.
Now I could have done some simple three-point sermon called “Three Ways to Face the Future,” but the problem with that is that I don’t think the problem with most people is that they haven’t heard enough sermons or read enough self-help books. The problem with Christians in America is that we don’t take Jesus seriously when he says that we must steep ourselves in God-reality. We think that means listening to more Christian radio or doing more for the church. What it really means is learning a whole new way to think, and that’s why I’m convinced that our women’s THRIVE group Christy is leading right now is one of the best things going in our church – because those women are reading a challenging book every month that is not simply giving two steps to this and three steps to that, but actually shaping the way they think about who they are and who God is. The problem with non-believers usually is that they want to take the encouraging stuff Jesus said, like how God numbers every hair on our heads, and just use that to help them feel better about their lives without paying attention to the overarching point Jesus came to make which is that we must not simply use God’s words for self-help in living life the way we want to, but must be willing to learn to live life the way God wants us to, which is the only way God’s words will ever make a real difference in our lives.
So the point of today’s message (and every week, really) is not to give you some quick and easy formula, but to help shape and influence thinking, perceptions, assumptions. Those looking for the presidential election-style 2 minute sound byte approach to Christianity will be disappointed. But if you’re looking for something deep, something real, something that will build a solid framework you can then build a life on, I think Wildwind is the right place for you.
We have begun to build that framework in regard to worry and fear today. Next week I’ll give you some practical tips for dealing with fear from God’s perspective. God wants you to trade in your mouse-heart so that he can put his own heart inside you. And there will be no fear in that heart.
