If there are bears in your neighborhood, you stay INSIDE and call your neighbors to alert them to the danger. If a tornado has popped up and you know that your brother is working and may not have seen television, you call to tell him that a twister has been spotted and is headed his way. If your favorite online shopping source has just been hacked and all shoppers’ names, addresses and credit cards were stolen, you would make sure that you have LIFELOCK, that you freeze your credit information, cards and bank accounts immediately.
Fear is NORMAL. This is the alarm system that alerts us to dangers and stimulates us to take action. Fight or flight is a normal response. Bears, tornadoes, massive scams, hurricanes, flooding, presidential elections and a global pandemic that can have deadly consequences to some who become infected can put in us in whirlwind of indecision and confusion. We don’t know what to do! We run for the hills when the water is rising or the enemy is at our heels. We take action! We sometimes feel guilty about this when we are taught to pray about everything. Let’s go there! Prayer: Why don’t we just go sit on the sofa and pray that the bears won’t hurt us, that the tornado won’t kill our brother and that our financial assets will escape the efforts of the thieves? Do we not trust that God can make it all go away? Are we being doubters when we head for high ground (safety)? God can ZAP the dangers away if that is what HE chooses to do. He could do an instantaneous fix if that is the what He chooses. Miracles in the Bible make us long for those ZAPPED miraculous solutions. His way, however, is not our way. We read about seas being parted with God’s people escaping dangers, crossing to safety. We read about walls of nations crumbled and food appearing in the desert. Many situations portrayed in the Bible show stormy situations that have miraculous solutions. Does it mean our faith faltering if we seek a place of safety?
Those of us who lead ordinary lives, living in ordinary homes, who are not scholars but who desire to learn, who love and fear God, and sincerely want to do what is right in His eyes, pray for wisdom to know if we should plant the corn in rows that line up east to west or line up north to south. Simple decisions may not put us in a state of high anxiety. A stormy world, however, can throw us there. The Bible shows us Jesus healing sicknesses, overcoming evil, as well giving us examples about how to live ordinary lives in ordinary homes. There are also balancing messages about working for our living while sheltering during storms, pestilences and renegade emotions. What verse in the Bible will show me how to act at this time in our chaotic world? What is the short answer? Proverbs 27:12 A prudent person sees trouble coming and ducks; a simpleton walks in blindly and is clobbered. We are told to “duck” from the trouble, to take protective action. There is also the inherent message that it is not wise to walk straight into the storm and think that we have own protected bubbles. Being told to get in out of the rain doesn’t mean our shelters will all be the same. The action needed might not be the same for every person. Biblical common sense has to be learned and applied to our own current situation. God sent His very own Son to provide the way [John 3:16] and to provide many examples of how to behave in our life situations. 1. Jesus came first and foremost to let everybody know they can live on after the body dies. This life doesn’t have to be all there is. 2. He also came to teach us to share the message that living eternally is available to everybody else (go tell it on the mountain) and 3. also to provide insight and examples to us so that we can form our own plans for balancing our ordinary lives while living worshipfully in ways that are pleasing to God. 4. He promised to be with His children through every storm. He didn’t say He would banish the storms. Throughout the Bible, we have been given many instances about how to behave in the face of danger and fear. Collectively these messages/parables/stories train us how to live and be pleasing to God .
John 16:33 Proverbs 27:12 Romans 12:2 Zechariah 13:9 Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 2 Timothy 3:16-17 Galatians 5:14 Proverbs 8:10 Hebrews 11:7 John 7:1 John 3:16-17 Romans 8:2