BITR: What Scares the Living Daylights Out of Me

Even after all the talking I did about how I am fearless, I suppose it's time for me to face the facts and admit what I do actually fear. So I've been thinking about it, and have realized that the one thing I fear the most is the unknown. Not knowing what is there, or what is going to happen, or what my future holds does scare the living daylights out of me. While I was on the cruise, I would stand at the balcony and look over into what seems like an endless sea and although I knew that I was safe, it sorta gave me this weird feeling. I really started to think about how we are floating in the dark and who knows whats down there swimming around ready to eat me. I starting thinking about how incredibly scary it would be if I fell over, and how the scariest part would not be drowning but being out there and not knowing where you are or what is around you. That all goes back to the unknowns. I think the reason the unknown is so scary is because we experience a complete lack of security. Its easier to walk down an alley in the daytime because we can see what is there; but at night, when we have no clue, it is much more terrifying.

I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and there was one line in the book that really stood out to me. Harry and Dumbledore are crossing a lake at night and Harry is afraid when he sees a dead body floating in the water. Dumbledore offers these words of encouragement, "There is nothing to be feared from a body, Harry, any more than there is anything to be feared from the darkness. Lord Voldemort, who of course secretly fears both, disagrees. But once again that reveals his own lack of wisdom. It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more."

So I suppose that gives the answer to why we fear the dark, why we fear death, why we fear the middle of a deep ocean, and why at times we fear tomorrow. It is because it is all unknown and we can't stand not knowing. But I guess that's what faith is, isn't it? Having courage through the unknown. As Christians, we live in a world of unknowns. There isn't much of an explanation to many things that happened in the Bible, and I think that's what turn a lot of people away from Christianity. They have a fear of not fully comprehending what they believe. At times, I think we all do. But without the unknowns, where would faith come in? If we knew everything then faith, one of the key essentials to being a Christian, would be meaningless in itself.

Tony Snow was a television commentator who later went on to become President Bush's secretary. In the midst of his terrible fight against cancer, he shares his testimony. I read it, and found a lot of it to be encouraging. He is staring death in the face, the ultimate unknown and that's when it all makes sense to him. Here is a paragraph of his testimony:

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change.
> You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious,
> and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
> of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful
> caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger,
> shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing
> though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed
> the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not
> about the morrow, but only about the moment.>

Faith being the evidence of things not seen may not be an answer that will get us very far; but if that's all we really have to lean on it. Lean on it and allow it to hold you up until we leave this world of unknowns and realize that maybe what we come to know doesn't matter as much as we once thought it did. We know what we need to know and nothing more, so what is there to fear? I don't really know. I just know that I do, and it's most likely because of the fact that I'm human.

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4

~*Elizabeth