The blessing of fear

Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.’

Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
‘Now I have put my words in your mouth.
See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.’ (Jeremiah 1:8-10)

The blessing of fear

These are the Lord’s words to his young prophet, Jeremiah, who lived in tumultuous times. His unfortunate task was proclaiming destruction to the great city of Jerusalem at the hands of a neighboring nation boiling hot for conquest.

It was a job no one should want, and all it ever got him was a boatload of trouble from fellow citizens who variously cursed and imprisoned him. Eventually, they threw him in a cistern where, fortunately, there was no water. He probably died in Egypt where his countrymen drug him as they escaped the carnage of their own country.

It’s the kind of story that makes for good cinema, but no one would want to live it.

What must it feel like to have a message written so deeply in your heart that you had to share it, even though you knew people would hate you for it? This was Jeremiah’s fate and the great pain he suffered for knowing God in the depth of his heart.

That should make us second guess our desire to get really close to this Holy Mystery, who might require a courage and conviction of us that we know we don’t have.

Still, the desire to feel God close stirs within. We long to hear that Voice whisper within, “Do not be afraid for I am with you.”

I suppose that’s the great thing about fear, the blessing of challenges that are too big for us. It is exactly then, exactly there that we are most likely to hear that Voice that quiets everything else.

Pr. David L. Miller