from Ron Rose
March 31, 2008

Preparation

So, what threats are you facing that have the potential of taking your life to a Threat Level Red? There are some in the USA who sense the whole country is a growing culture of fear. How about you?

Do any of these fears rattle your cage:
Terror fears?
Health fears?
Employment fears?
Travel fears?
Fears about our water, our food, our environment, our future?
Fear of being found-out?
Fear of growing old?
Fear of conflict, violence, or rejection?
Fear of chaos?
Fear that we’ve collectively lost our way?

Having trouble zeroing in on one? Fear is rarely about anything specific—it’s about everything. At its core is a pervasive feeling of powerlessness.

In this complicated world with boundaries blurring and bleeding into each other, fear is here to stay. Like it our not, we have to life with it. Let me say this clearly and with distinction, “Our fearful, non-specific, powerless, reality is necessary for the emergence of a new generation of faith giants. For without fear there would be no faith.”

Fear reveals where we are on the journey and gives us the fuel for the next faith step—it energizes us.

Inspiration

At 2 a.m. the call came from the AIDS hospice. Jane, the EMS worker, had been there before. She was afraid of the place and the people in it. She cautiously pulled on her jumpsuit, dawned her gloves, and her mask covering her nose and mouth. When they arrived Jane and her co-worker were shown to a bedroom where they found a thin black woman with wild hair.

Jane was handed a printout of her medical history and told this lady should be dead ten times over. She has AIDS, hepatitis, TB and thrush, and has had brain surgery. Now she has had a seizure. She slurs when she talks, and she sounds extremely angry.

"Hello, I'm Jane from the ambulance," Jane said. She replied by cussing.

"Are you in pain?" Jane asked. The lady’s eyes had the look, that panicky look of fear.

"We're going to take you to the hospital now."

While Jane rode alone with her in the back of the ambulance she reread the printout. The patient was 33 years old. No family members. No next of kin. Her whole life was just a list of medicines, symptoms and illnesses. As Jane read on, she could feel eyes focused on her.

Jane noticed on the printout that the patient loves gospel music. Jane does too. “I see you like gospel music, so do I,” Jane said. “I really like the Gaither’s.”

Suddenly the patient's eyes move back and forth. "I like them too," she whispered. Jane was stunned she could speak.

So, right there in the back of the Ambulance they talked of other gospel singers and before long they were both singing familiar words to old songs… and fear was gone. A milestone was reached and faith was fueled.

Motivation

Remember the 1986 horror film, "The Fly?" OK maybe you missed it. But I’m sure you’ve heard one of the lines in the film… The plot has Brundle, an eccentric scientist, experimenting with teleportation. Before we are far into the film, the experiments begin to go horribly wrong.

Quaife, a reporter working on the teleportation story finally realizes that Brundle is starting to turn into an insect; he pleads with one of the characters and says, "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

Fear is the signal that God is about to show up… we are about to feel closer to him than ever before. In fact, this rich fearful moment will become a milestone, a clarifying and transforming experience, if we are willing. Are you willing to let fear point you to God?

So be afraid, be very afraid. Faith is waiting.