T42D: Do it afraid
Rodders’ latest is so timely.
I was out walking Pip this morning for my once-a-day exercise. On the narrower paths other dog walkers were standing to one side and waiting for others to pass. Pip and I did this too. It felt like being on a narrow single track country road with passing places. You know, the kind with grass growing down the middle. And the smiles and appreciation and thank-you courtesy was similar. We kept our distance.
Some people seemed super friendly; others were apprehensive.
Ed.
Over to you Rodders:
At the outbreak of World War 2 Britain prepared itself for Germany to use poisonous gas, just as in World War 1. But for the whole of 1939–1945 no gas bombs were dropped, although the nation was gripped in fear of a possible German gas attack.
Today there is national and international fear regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, with our country now being told to self-isolate.
This got me thinking about fear.
“I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens”- Woody Allen
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear”- Nelson Mandela
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”- Franklin D Roosevelt
A way I remember ‘fear’ is in the form of an acronym — F E A R which is either ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’, or ‘False Expectation Appearing Real’.
I came across this quote from David Joseph Schwartz who said, “Do what you fear and fear disappears”. Joyce Meyer, Christian Bible teacher similarly says when confronted by something we find fearful is to ‘do it afraid’.
The Bible reminds us that “God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind”.
I came across this amazing insight by John Lennon who said, “There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open hearted vision of people who embrace life”.
It can also be summed up in a verse from the first epistle of John where he says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear”.
To conclude:
On May 3, 1943, air raid sirens sounded over London. People raced toward Bethnal Green Underground station, where more than 500 people had already taken refuge. In the next ten minutes 1,500 more would join them. A woman carrying a baby lost her footing on one of the 19 steps leading down from the street. Like dominoes, people started falling on top of one another. In the end, 173 people died. Bombs did not kill them; fear did.
Today there’s a stampede of fear around us and, if you’re not careful, you’ll get caught up in it.
It’s okay to recognise danger, but God doesn’t want you to be overwhelmed by it. So you need to monitor what you listen to, think and say.
Some are fearful of what will happen to them and question whether there’s life after death. However, for the Christian we don’t need to fear death as scripture aptly tells us it will mean “being absent from the body and present with the Lord”.
So the thought for today is “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear”.
Rodders
