Twenty-first century culture seems to be in hot pursuit of a “freedom” that has turned out to be more of a compulsory, self-destructive licentiousness. This chase to the cultural bottom has been particularly hard on children. Marital happiness is encouraged, but often at the expense of marital commitment. Fractured marriages have meant shattered children.The young are taught that their sexuality is subjective, and unrelated to their bodies. They are told they can achieve whatever they dream, even as their experiences prove otherwise. They are told they are evil, or they are victims, depending on the color of their skin. They are taught to demand free speech, even as they are pressured to “cancel” those who resist trending narratives. They are taught to stay informed, and then they are subjected opinion-heavy news about wars, natural disasters, mass shootings, and Ivy Leaguers in keffiyehs.
Young people seek refuge through website avatars, at the cost of experience in the real world. They are manipulated on social platforms to share private details about themselves, to their peril. They are taught to look inward for guidance, but their navel-gazing is only increasing their anxiety levels.
Fears plague older people, as well. Charlatans lurk in the shadows of every legitimate website. Our polarized culture cranks out half-truths, leaving people confused, angry and isolated. Employment seems increasingly unstable and frenetic. Technological advances seem to be more a chase after novelty than meaningful aids for living. The constant adjustments to these changes are exhausting. Health care is increasingly bureaucratic and costly. Hurricanes descend from the sky. The standard life-plan seems to be: live long, save enough money to manage the ailments of old age, and then die. To those who stop to question, The hollowness and futility of it is apparent. Of course people are anxious.
But perhaps there are reasons to not be anxious. Perhaps we should be looking beyond our navels and the claptrap of our culture. Perhaps we need to enter a greater room.
Created
The book ofGenesis proclaims that God created man in his own image; male and female he created them. This means that humansare not accidents of an aimless universe. Instead, we are part of a grand, guided drama. When history is directed by an all-powerful, caring God, even life’s difficulties can be understood as something positive, as means for discipline and training.
Being created also means that we are not God. This relieves us of the delusions that we must know all the answers, and that we must be able to solve all our problems. Fear diminishes when we turn from self-dependency to dependency on the Creator.
Blessed
God blessed [Adam & Eve]. “Have children so that there will be many of you. Fill the earth and bring it under your control.” (Genesis 1.28). God desires human flourishing. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29.11)
God’s blessings are not merely positive thoughts; God’s blessings come through his power. He provides us with air, food, water, wood and stone for construction, precious minerals, reserves of fuel, human companionship, and on and on.
More important than any of these valuable gifts, God gives us himself. He is interested in us. He hears our prayers and makes certain we have what we need. God is intimately involved in the life of every person.
Image Bearers
The book of Genesis is attributed to Moses, who was raised in the Egyptian court. In those days, the kings and pharaohs of great nations would employ emissaries to represent their interests to their vassal nations. These emissaries often would carry an image—a little statue—of the king they represented. When an emissary spoke, subjects were to respond to the image-bearer as if he was the actual king. Image-bearers, for their part, were to faithfully represent. When Moses wrote that God created men and women in his image, this made them image-bearers. The point is that God’s intended role for all humans has been this important and honored position.
Enabled
We arewondrously made. We are able to see, and in color. Color has few practical applications, but God, in his extravagance, gives it to us. He passes this love of extravagance along to us. C.S. Lewis said, “Man is a poetical animal and touches nothing that he does not adorn.”
We hear sounds of differing tones, textures and volumes. We smell; we taste. We touch, not only with our hands, but through every surface of our bodies. We have hands that lift heavy objects and thread needless. We have feet on which we move about, slowly or quickly; ascending or descending; forward or backward; or twirling, if it suits our fancy.
The range of human capacity reveals that we are made for multiple purposes. Our earthly lifespans are insufficient for us to fully explore our capacities. This, too, speaks of God’s bounty, and it is a strong hint that life is meant to continue beyond our earthly sojourn. There is so much to do! Our bodies know.
Humans develop better language skills by the age of two than other creatures ever develop. We learn the language of the locals. If you had chosen different parents you would be speaking fluently in any one of over 7000 languages! How did language come to us? God, sometimes known as “the Word”, assigned it to us.
Humans learn and record their learning. As individuals, we are no smarter than the humans who lived 5000 years ago, but our accumulated knowledge is far greater. I am typing on a word processor. Five thousand years ago I would have been scratching marks into clay tablets.
Humans can explore and create and imagine. Humans can sing and play musical instruments, generating countless songs. C.S.Lewis commented: “Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature.”
Humans are emotional. Most creatures exhibit emotion, but human emotions are more profound, expressed through smiles, tears, through dry mouths, nervous sweating, and unsteady legs. Human emotions can be brought on by beautiful sounds or scary sounds, or beautiful scenery, or familiar smells; through memories, through speeches that resonate, and through ideas that seem important. Humans are filled with emotion at departures and arrivals, births, baptisms, graduations, political rallies, marriages, and deaths. The depth of human thought is what makes us so emotional. Sometimes it’s the shallowness of human thought that makes us so emotional. We are passionate in our thoughts, whether they are sublime or ridiculous. We are emotional because life matters to us. Life matters because God tells us we matter.
Humans are moral creatures. This doesn’t necessarily mean we are good. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed: “The line between good and evil runs right through every human heart.” But humans are at all times thinking about right and wrong. We don’t always understand what is right, and we argue about it all the time (or we avoid talking about it because our differences can be upsetting). But we cannot escape our passionate desire for the world to be right…because we are made in the image of God.
We can be self-sacrificial. This makes no sense in a materialistic world, but it makes perfect sense when we understand we are made to be like God.
Many insist that humans are merely complex animals. G.K.Chesterton thought this idea laughable. “If you begin to look at beasts and men then (if you have any humor or imagination, any sense of the frantic or the farcical) you will observe that the startling thing is not how like man is to the brutes, but how unlike he is…That an ape has hands is far less interesting to the philosopher than the fact that having hands he does next to nothing with them; does not play knuckle-bones or the violin; does not carve marble or mutton. People talk about barbaric architecture and debased art. But elephants do not build colossal temples of ivory even in a rococo style; camels do not paint even bad pictures, though equipped with the material of many camel’s-hair brushes…We talk of wild animals; but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals; following the rugged respectability of their tribe or type. All other animals are domestic animals; man alone is ever undomestic, either as a profligate or a monk.”
Humans are gifted, which means our abilities are received. We can develop our abilities, of course, but even many of our strong character traits and skills have come through teachers and parents. While we owe much to our parents, we were highly developed before they met us. Our parents held us and cried over us. “I wonder who this little person is,” they said to each other. Your parents were scared, excited, and joyful at the privilege of receiving you. They marveled as you developed, and are still invested in the emerging you.
You are a wonder. It is a privilege for anyone to make your acquaintance. That should give you joy. You are a gift from God. That should remind you to be humble.
Social
God blesses females and males. He blesses people of every tribe, race, and nation. Therefore we should regard all people with a certain awe. C.S.Lewis remarked: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”
We were made for relationships. God observed: “It is not good that the man should be alone.” (Genesis 2.18). This, too, is a blessing and a reflection of the nature of God. Our fears diminish when we attend to the needs of others, limiting our self-attention. Self-absorption makes us miserable; serving others brings us joy.
Purpose-oriented
God is a Creator, so we are re-creators. God directed Adam and Eve to have children. The process of embryonic development is a profound mystery. As individuals, we each began as a single cell that divided up for multi-tasking, eventually becoming 40 trillion cells, each containing 1.5 gigabytes of data. Our mature bodies contain 60 zettabytes of information. Computational neuroscientists estimate that the storage capacity of the human brain is 100 terabytes of information. This means our bodies contain 600 million times as much information as our brains. We’re a lot smarter than we think.
Re-creation means much more than producing more people, though. Parenting requires the physical and spiritual nurturing of children. The fact that God made male and female in his image implies that a mother and a father together better represent God to their children than any other arrangement. Perhaps the most critical element of the family unit is commitment. Commitment means that when we are strong we will support those we are committed to, and when we are weak we will be supported. Relational commitment is one way that God provides for us and calms our fears.
Humans are not the most physically powerful creatures on earth. We would lose fights with lions, bears, moose, and sharks. We’ve lost quite a few battles to mosquitos. And, yet, human knowledge gives us the upper hand. But God does not want us to use our strength for exploitation. From the beginning humans were directed to care for the earth. The assignments of family and world stewardship tell us much about how we are to live, and they help us understand who we are. God is working out his design to rule the world through us.
Unique
Every individual is unique in being and purpose.One way for us to discover our purposes is to faithfully manage our responsibilities. Skills gained through good work creates opportunities. We are also guided by our own joyful responses to work. We may not be able to match our joys exactly with our vocations, but activities that give us joy can still be practiced through avocations. We learn of our purposes through circumstances and opportunities. We learn of them through the affirmations of others.
Some people seem to map out their lives as young children; some people in their seventies are still wondering what to do with their lives. Do not be anxious about any of this. Uncertainty is an adventure, not an affliction. This can be true in a universe ordered by a benevolent God.
We need not compare ourselves to others. Teddy Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” There will always be people who are less gifted than you, and there will always be people who are more gifted. You will often be scrutinized and graded. Such measurements have their purposes, but they only measure where you are, not what you may develop into. You do not have to prove your self. You are treasured by God, and he is the one with the real measure of you.
We need not worry about success. First of all, the World confuses success with fame, power, and money. None of these are important. When we love these things more than people and God we become superficial and obnoxious. Let the unimportant things have their places; let the important be important.
All of us have numerous responsibilities in life, but we were not designed to do everything. We can relax. God never seems to be in a hurry. In God’s economy there is enough time. We will be given the time we need to complete the tasks we need to complete.
We spend a third of our lives sleeping. This seems wasteful. God never sleeps. Sleep is a daily reminder that we are not God. Apparently, it’s important that we sleep in order for us to function well when we wake. Each night, after a long day of dealing with issues, we can stretch out on the bed and say, “Wow, this is nice!” And in the morning when we wake we can say, “Hey, it’s another day! I’ve got things to do! People to meet! Places to go! How ‘bout a little breakfast?!”
Sleep is a gift. While working, building, and serving are part of what it means to be human, anxiety is not. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. (Psalm 127.2). Kelly Kapic notes that most of us have the tendency of seeing ourselves as human doings rather than human beings. The need for rest is God’s way of saying that we are more than what we do. It is good for us to take times of refreshment with friends, family, and with the Church. It is good for us to lay in hammocks and watch butterflies.
Work is work; it can be repetitive and boring, but that does not necessarily mean it is unimportant. Good work is mostly about disciplined, repetitive effort. Thomas Edison said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Out of the boredom springs a symphony.
Recognition is nice, but generally it is not important. We can take joy in our good work, whether we are famous or unknown. God knows.
We do not need to obsess over our looks. It’s good to be clean, modest, and to make healthy choices. But we should not redesign our bodies. Don’t graffiti the Da Vinci. Most of us are not particularly handsome or beautiful. What a relief! Beauty is idolized, which makes it a burden. Being an attractive person, on the other hand, is of great value.
Jesus is described in Isaiah 53.2: He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. The New Testament was written about Jesus but you cannot find in it one description of his looks. It’s likely he looked like a Jewish man from the region of Galilee. That’s what we’ve got. On the other hand, we know a great deal about what he said and did. In these ways he was an unmatched beauty.
Crowds, mobs, gangs & cliques have two things in common: meanness and stupidity. When we are being pressured to act, that is reason enough that we shouldn’t. Good actions come from calm deliberations.
God loves truth. Ironically, many people will mistrust and shun us when we are honest. This is because they value loyalty over honesty. That is, they value our loyalty to them. Because they are comfortable with dishonesty, they will not mind being disloyal to us. Being honest is often inconvenient, but only in the short run. Honesty firms up our good relationships and starves our bad ones.
Peace comes through thinking eternally. Children are wonderful. They are full of life; they skip and jump. They are affectionate; they want to hug. There is something sad about growing up. But G.K. Chesterton had an insight about this: “It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” When we are resurrected our bodies will be remade and our hearts will be liberated from sin. Agelessness is part of our inheritance.
The aging process can be dispiriting and frightening. If death is the end, these are reasonable apprehensions. However, if death is the doorway to resurrection, death does no real harm. We can live fearlessly even in the face of degeneration.
Made to Grow
God tests us, but he is not trying to decide something about us. God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1.31). The tests God gives are designed to refine and improve us. Some of life’s most enduring lessons result from mistakes or bad decisions. This is not to recommend bad decisions; it is to remind us to learn from them. So we need not fear the challenges that come our way. They are for us. We know that God works all things together for good with those who love him. (Romans 8.28). We will not be strong enough to overcome all our challenges. Times may come when we feel utterly broken, but God is our protector and he is stronger than all our foes. He will walk with us through every fire.
God’s tests are simple. They come in various shapes and sizes, but they boil down to one question: “What should you do?” And here is the answer: “Obey God”. This will sometimes seem to be the wrong answer, but it will always be the right answer.
Peter, James, and John saw Jesus transfigured on a mountaintop. His face shone like the sun and his clothes became like light. Jesus spoke there with the long dead prophets, Moses and Elijah (apparently not dead, after all). Peter, James and John seemed equally in awe of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, but then a voice came from heaven that said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” The disciples collapsed on the ground in terror. The first thing Jesus said to them was, “Get up,” and “Don’t be afraid.” This is the first message of the one who has been given all authority.
Made for God’s Society
I say we should live without fear, but this is not the full truth. Fear God.
We need to fear God like we fear the rain. If we’re not dressed for it, it may chill us and make us sick. But without rain our world would be a desert. We need to fear God like we fear the sun. It can burn us and give us cancer, but without it there would be no life on the earth. To fear God is to accept that his words are true. To turn from his instruction is to invite calamity, not because he is intent on punishing disobedience but because he only gives us good advice. We harm ourselves when we refuse to take it.
Paradoxically, when we fear God we no longer need be afraid of him. The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. – Zephaniah 3.17.
Because we fear God we do not have to fear ideas. There are many frightening and many seductive ideas in the world but God’s truth exposes their errors.
Because we fear God we do not need to fear the violent, the liars, the thieves, or the merciless. In time, God will either change them or he will put an end to them.
Because we fear God we do not have to fear our own weaknesses. God removes the sinful inclinations of those who fear him. Some of us have done horrible things that we cannot undo, and we are tormented by guilt. Most of us are afflicted with bad habits we can’t shake. We may even despise and condemn ourselves, but God forgives.
What is forgiveness, anyway? It is a cancellation of debt. When we injure someone, we owe them restitution. When Christ died on the cross he paid off all our debts, and he paid for all the debts incurred against us. If we trust him and accept his payment, we are freed from debt. We are not free to continue doing evil, of course, but we are free of the long-term consequences of sin. As we grow in wisdom, we experience liberation in the present, as well. Because of God’s forgiveness, we are enabled to forgive others and forgive ourselves.
Because we fear God we have no need to fear loneliness, abandonment or relational apathy. Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13.12). Knowledge, as used in this verse, is fundamentally relational. What we all desire most is to know others well and to be known. What we mostly experience are relationships hedged with caution and fear. God promises a day of fearless relationships.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4.6,7). God created us to be like him. This does not mean we will become omniscient or omnipotent or omnipresent. Humans can’t be and don’t need to be these things. But it does mean that we have been made to be filled with his Holy Spirit, rich in relationships; and to live service-oriented, creative, interesting, joyful lives forever. Because of his commitment to us, we can live without fear. We are supposed to live without fear. God’s design for us is that we live as fearless kids.
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