“‘Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us, this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.  Do not listen to Hezekiah.  This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me.  Then each of you will eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern until I come and take you to a land like your own…’ ”  2 Kings 18:30

Let’s understand something right now:  Fear doesn’t want you to trust in God.  It wants you to trust in it!

In a way, trust is not only the antonym of fear, but also the antidote.   Now there will be moments in life when you will need to actually trust the emotion of fear as it might be the impetus that removes something harmful from your well-being.  That is not the kind of fear we are talking about as that fear arises from our God-given senses and is meant to protect us from the harms that life can hold.

Fear is an emotion that God specifically created us to feel, and with good reason, as a healthy dose of fear often prevents us from straying off the right path and onto the wrong one.  Worthless fears, however, are quite different.  They are the fears that we really need to explore and consider as they are often the ones that lead us, or keep us relegated, to a path where an unnecessary amount of fear is grown and nurtured.  One of Fear’s favorite tool is to make us feel afraid and then expand and expound on all the potential feelings that might be connected to it.  As we engage those potentials, its sphere of influence webs out connecting to other decisions, activities and relationships in our lives.

In Jonah 2:8, we see that “Those who worship worthless idols forfeit the grace that could have been theirs.” An idol can be “a mere image or semblance of something; visible but without substance, as a phantom; a figment of the mind; fantasy; a false conception or notion; fallacy.”  See link.  A fallacy is “a “deceptive, misleading or false notion, belief, etc…an unsound argument” and in logic, it is any type of “erroneous reasoning that render arguments logically unsound.” See link.

Quite honestly, many of our fears never come to fruition.  They are very much the definition of idol, a phantom; a figment that our minds have made up in response to the feelings fear has triggered in us.  How many times do we convince ourselves of the frightening future and then realize none of it came true?  They were literally a false notion in response to what triggered our fear.  How often does our momentary “sound” reasoning when engaging fear become not-so-sound after it has passed?  And why?  Because what we feared did not come true; what we conjured up to justify it was literally just figments of our imaginations.

Add to it that in Jonah 2:8, “”idols” is qualified by the word, “worthless”.  This qualifier is exactly how we know that God is not speaking to all fears, as some are, indeed, legitimate.  Let’s dig deeper to see if we can delineate between what makes some fears of value and others, worthless:

1. without worth; of no use, importance or value; good-for-nothing

The roots of worthless are literally worth + –less.  The adjective suffix of -less means to be “without” and indicates a “failure or inability to perform or be performed.” Let’s dig into the definition of worth to see if we can figure out a little more about worth-less by adding the suffix of –less to those worth’s definitions:

1.  without good or important that is enough to justify;
2. without having value;
3. without have any grounds (i.e., property to stand on);
4. without excellence of character or quality as commanding esteem;
5. without usefulness or importance to the world, to a person, or for a purpose.
6. without value.

http://www.dictionary.com/worth (modifications  and emphasis are mine).

Think about it this way:  Fear does not want you to take the time to weigh its value.  And why is that?  Because your haste is its ally as a rush to judgment leaves you no time to slow down and think.  When you take the time to engage a deeper evaluation, Fear knows you may find that you need to trust in something other than what it is promoting.  And Fear wants you to fear more; it wants its strength to grow in and through your feelings.  It is how concern can lead to worrying, which can bring about anxiety and then morph into intense feelings of panic.  Most of the time, if you slow down and watch, the original thing that ignited fear in you remains unchanged.  It hasn’t grown in threat nor faded from view; only the emotions associated with fear have grown in the inside of you and your thoughts.

Let us remember that we are not stuck in or with fear.  The antidote is to place our trust in God.  As we learned in other posts, trusting God requires us to exercise our faith while we control both our willingness and our actions in that regard.  It is our responsibility to make sure trust in our lives is being built correctly.  It is not snap-your-fingers type of magical thinking, but a conscious choice that deliberates on what, who, why and how we are trusting all the while testing each step for its sincerity and reliability.  Running after Fear and its friends–even if just in our thoughts–is not trusting God with your path.  It will be hard work to stop, pause and realign yourself with trusting God rather than continuing on with the presence of Fear.

In most instances, when we experience fear outside of an imminent threat, we have the luxury of being able to stop and ask ourselves if what we are fearing has true merit.  We will need to determine whether it really is adding any goodness or value to our lives.  We need to look closer at whether embracing our fear means that we will continually go without something that is useful to us specifically because of that fear?  Does our fear truly have any ground to stand on, or does that ground disappear as we better evaluate our concern?  Are we looking for justifications, or looking for truth?  If we respond as fear dictates, will it lead us to excellence in our character or more harm to our minds and hearts–to who we really are and are meant to be?  Are we being built up or torn down?  What would likely happen if we went without a response to those fears?  Let us ask what would happen to our world, the life of another, or a relevant cause if we left fear without a voice in our lives?  Go through that list and reconsider the inherent value of your fears.  If the answers line up more on the side of no real value added by being afraid, then you will know that your fear is in the realm of worthless.

To live by faith takes a concerted effort to understand what you are fearing and whether those fears are truly valuable.  With that effort, when dealing with worthless fears, you may feel a paradox of sorts as fear will make you want to run or rush–pushing you to believe you must act quickly–while faith will want you to exercise caution and turn to God first.  In 2 Kings 18, Jerusalem was being invaded by the Assyrians.  This massive army was already near the city when the commander sent King Hezekiah a message demanding that he surrender.  The message was sent in Hebrew, and King Hezekiah’s officials asked that they be spoken to in Aramaic for the city’s residents were all near the wall where the message was being shouted.  In that request, Israel’s leaders were trying to protect their people from the advancing army’s frightening threats, but the Assyrian commander–sensing that he could get the upper hand through fear-inducing words–decided to speak directly to the people:

“Do not let Hezekiah deceive you.  He cannot deliver you from my hand.”  2 Kings 18:29

Make no mistake about it.  Fear is that brazen.  It will shout out and demand that you not trust in anything but it.  It will be loud and impetuous.  But you know what else?  Fear employs all sorts of temptations to bring you to its side.  In its demands, it will be cloaked with false promises of peace, satisfying and nurturing solutions, and a new and easy place for you to dwell with your thoughts.  Ironically, this “new” land is just like the old spot you were in–the only difference is fear now has control of what goes on.  The words of that commander were dripping with deceit–they were invaders coming to pillage, plunder, destroy and enslave–but his words promised peace, nourishment, and success if they would only turn to him rather than their God-given leader.

“‘Do not listen to Hezekiah.  This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me.  Then each of you will eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern….Choose life and not death!'”  2 Kings 18:31, 32

What happened next and what did King Hezekiah do?  The people stayed quiet and remained where they were just as the king had instructed them to do.  They did not act on those frightening words the messenger delivered.  They did not run in panic, but rather stayed quiet and waited. The king then humbled himself in prayer and petition before the Lord while sending some of his men to the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah sent back this message, which seemed incredibly challenging to trust as the fearsome army they faced had conquered most of the surrounding lands.  Please see that our best hope lies with God and not with fear and its false promises:

“…Isaiah said to them, ‘Tell your master, “This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard–those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.  Listen!  When he hears a certain report, I will make him want to return to his own country…”‘” 2 Kings 19:6-7

Faced with one of the most advancing and powerful nations in the world, God told them said, “Do not be afraid.” God was bigger than their enemies, and it was King Hezekiah’s trust in His power that brought about the king of Assyria’s retreat.  God, today and tomorrow, is still more powerful than your fears.  Understand this, fear will blaspheme God.  It wants the power and control of your life.  It wants you to come to it, and live in its land of insecurity.  It wants to be your lord, and not your savior.   It is not about trust, nor facilitating it, nor growing faith.  The only faith it wants is yours.  When you focus more on what you fear than on turning to your God, you have given fear His place in your life.

So take the time to determine whether your fears are legitimate and well-controlled or worthless and growing in more influence in your life.  Real trust in God cannot be cultivated in the land of fear.  It is grown in quiet and humble prayer and faith that seeks Him before succumbing to Fear’s demands.  Start first by purposefully putting your trust in God as soon as you start to feel any form of fear…despite the difficult effort that may require.  It is in turning to Him with such trust that you will find true peace, strength and comfort to face what you fear.

“When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You.”  Psalm 56:3