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Fear.

It creeps in everywhere and is so hard to banish.

There is much to fear in this broken world of ours.

Fear is, at its root, the failure to believe God.

We don’t truly believe that He will take care of us, that He wants what is best for us, and so we are afraid.

There is much fear in the gospels.

The disciples fear the storms on the sea, fear the hungry crowds, fear the strange suffering of which Jesus keeps speaking.

In Mark’s gospel the opposite of faith is not unbelief but fear. ~ Bonnie B. Thurston in The Spiritual Landscape of Mark

I recently was afraid.

We are still paying off medical bills from last year, and suddenly both of our cars needed work done and were not driveable.

At the same time.

Immediately I felt the fear creeping in.

How will we take the girls places? With four children, we don’t all fit in just any kind of vehicle! How will we pay for it all?

Often, I confess, I give in to the fear.

This time, however, God gave me the grace to resist.

My husband and I continued to tithe.

The night our vehicles broke down I spoke with my girls about God as our Provider, about the promises He made to always take care of us, about the ways He has provided in the past.

Our Bible story that evening happened to be the story of the loaves and the fish.

The story that happens in the desert.

With no natural food sources to be found.

Where God provides enough.

And more than enough.

That same night I received a text from my parents.

Five days previously, they had decided, for no particular reason, to give a monetary gift to each of their children.

Five days previously.

I fell to my knees in gratitude.

God our provider.

The next morning I got to gather my girls into my arms and tell them that even before we knew we needed it,

God provided.

Fear is everywhere.

The circumstances that produce the feelings of fear are constant.

Will we choose to dwell in that fear, allowing thoughts of worry and anxiety to win?

Or will we choose to push them out with reminders of the character of God, the times He has cared for us in the past, the stories in Scripture of His care for His beloved?

Will we choose to believe?

There is much fear in the gospels.

The gospel of Mark, in fact, ends in fear.

Mark ends with an empty tomb, a message from an angel, and three women who say nothing “for they were afraid.”

I am those women.

More often than not I give in to my fear rather than choosing to believe.

Mark lets me know that God is gentle with my fear, wanting to comfort rather than chastise me.

We do, after all, still live in this broken world, in this space before the restoration of all things.

This is where we live: after the resurrection but before the Return, entrusted with a message that is wonderful, but the import of which we don’t quite understand. ~ Bonnie B. Thurston in The Spiritual Landscape of Mark

Mark gives me hope.

Hope that God is gentle with my fear, that He still entrusts me His message.

Hope that He will not give up on me but will continue to change my fear into faith.

Art credits: photographs of storms by Kirk Sewell; Jesus and His Disciples on the Sea of Galilee from The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation; Jesus Walks on the Sea by Gustave Dore

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