What are you afraid of? For me, I have had a lifelong fear of falling. No, really, of falling. I am not afraid of heights, I love to see the view from 35,000 feet or from tall buildings. But if you ask me to stand at the very edge and look down, uh, nope not going to do that. I have never like climbing trees for the same reason, but I love tree houses, you know the kind
Fear kills our ability to think and our ability to react. The “deer in the headlights” is the response between fight or flight, it is just frozen in place. Fear has its place, of course. If you fall from a high place you get hurt. Fear discourages you from putting yourself in danger. It can literally keep you alive. But what about irrational fears? There are many in mental health that are irrational, even one that is the fear of the number 13. Really, afraid of a number? It is no less real to the person who has this than my fear of falling is to me. It is irrational only because seeing and touching the number 13 will not cause physical damage.
What about the fear to think for oneself? That is the one that does the most harm. In church life, quite often the church tells us what to think about various issues. When did becoming a Christian cause me to “lose my mind” and not think for myself? Over the years I have seen the fear of thinking for oneself do so much harm to so many. Two hundred years ago, letting someone else think for them allowed the slave trade to be justified. One hundred years ago, letting someone else do the thinking demeaned women and taught that they could not be pastors and ministers. Today, the issue is about LBGTQ persons.
What we never seem to learn is that it is always bad to let someone else tell us how to think. It is always unhealthy to be paralyzed with the fear of thinking for oneself when it comes to God. God is so much greater than all of our fears, including thinking about God. Letting someone else tell us how to think has hurt so very many people. Has led to us acting contrary to the love of God in Christ.
It is time, dear ones, to decide to think for ourselves. To think about what it means to follow Christ. To unlearn what we have been told to think. To think from the “heart”. To let love lead us to treasures we would otherwise miss. My daughter’s church has a motto that I love: Free to think, Bound to serve. This congregation, at this writing, has been ongoing for 175 years! Let’s think about that history. In all of those many years, always free to think. May we each know that same freedom.
TMM