By my friend Mitch Teemley
Day 1 of 365. Gulp. Few years in recent memory have begun with more apprehension about the state of our world. It’s been said that some variation of the phrase “Do Not be Afraid” appears 365 time in the Bible–once for each day of the year.
Could God be trying to tell us something?
Ever since Einstein’s day scientists have been trying to find a Unified Field, a framework that unifies all fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, etc.). Ten years ago, Interstellar—a movie about our world being sucked into an immense black hole–suggested that love is the solution, the Unified Field.
Is there a connection between love and the Bible’s insistence that we not be afraid? According to I John 4:18, “Perfect love casts out fear.” In other words, fear, not hatred, is the opposite of love. And yet, in the Bible, when virtually anyone enters the presence of God, they fall to their knees in recognition of their own brokenness (Isaiah 6:6; Luke 5:8).
Why? Because we think we’re OK until we see what OK really looks like. Then we suddenly understand that we’re not even close. And the closer we get to God, the more we understand how just broken our world is–and how broken we are. We’re selfish, vindictive, vain…. You know what I’m talking about.
So the solution is to avoid God, right? Only if you want to live a lie. No, the solution is to dive into that black hole, the terrifying realization that our world really is broken, and that we suck even more than that black hole does. And God isn’t the problem, he’s the solution. He doesn’t cause our fears, we do. But God’s “perfect love casts out fear.”
When we humble ourselves and admit we suck, God’s response is, “Yeah, I know, but guess what? I love you, and my love is the Unified Field that holds the whole universe together, so I’m pretty sure it can help you stop sucking. Now, get over here…
And stop being afraid!” (see James 4:10 and Micah 7:18-19)
Lets talk about life and why we are alive! 