Topic : Fear

A freshman at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the greater Idaho Falls Science Fair, April 26, 1997. He was attempting to show how conditioned we have become to alarmist practicing junk science and spreading fear of everything in our environment. In his project he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical “dihydrogen monoxide.”

And for plenty of good reasons, since it:

• Can cause excessive sweating and vomiting.
• It is a major component in acid rain.
• It can cause severe burns in its gaseous state.
• Accidental inhalation can kill you.
• It decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.
• It has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients.

He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical. Forty-three said yes, six were undecided, and only one knew that the chemical was H20 (water). The title of his prize winning project was, “How Gullible Are We?” He feels the conclusion is obvious.

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I know not, but God knows;
Oh, blessed rest from fear!
All my unfolding days
To Him are plain and clear.

Each anxious, puzzled “Why?”
From doubt or dread that grows,
Finds answer in this thought:
I know not, but He knows.

I cannot, but God can;
Oh, balm for all my care!
The burden that I drop
His hand will lift and bear.

Though eagle pinions tire,
I walk where once I ran, This is
my strength to know
I cannot, but He can.

I see not, but God sees;
Oh, all sufficient light!
My dark and hidden way
To Him is always bright.

My strained and peering eyes
May close in restful ease,
And I in peace may sleep;
I see not, but He sees.

-Annie Johnson Flint

Source unknown

Let me tell you a true but tragic story: A woman was once walking along a riverbank with her child. Suddenly the child slipped into the river. The mother screamed in terror. She couldn’t swim, and besides, she was in the latter stages of pregnancy. Finally, somebody heard her screaming and rushed down to the riverbank. The utter tragedy was, when they stepped into those murky waters to retrieve that now dead child, they found that the water was only waist deep! That mother could have easily saved her child but didn’t because of a lack of knowledge.

Hell’s Best Kept Secret, by Ray Comfort (Bellflower, CA: Ray Comfort, 1989), pp. 160-161.

• False Evidence Appearing Real, Zig Ziglar

Like the children of Israel in today’s Bible reading, Hannah Hurnard, author of Hinds’ Feet on High Places, was once paralyzed by fear. Then she heard a sermon on scarecrows that challenged her to turn her fear into faith.

The preacher said, “A wise bird knows that a scarecrow is simply an advertisement. It announces that some very juicy and delicious fruit is to be had for the picking. There are scarecrows in all the best gardens...If I am wise, I too shall treat the scarecrow as though it were an invitation. Every giant in the way which makes me feel like a grasshopper is only a scarecrow beckoning me to God’s richest blessings.” He concluded, “Faith is a bird which loves to perch on scarecrows. All our fears are groundless.”

Our Daily Bread, April 6, 1995

Anytime we are engaged in a work for God, we are likely to encounter the poison-tipped arrows of ridicule. A barrage of truth mingled with lies, innuendo, malicious gossip and implied threats is the normal experience of leaders. Malice arises from fear. And fear is a common response to someone else’s success. So expect to have your faults thrown in your face, your folly mocked and your real progress belittled. When this happens, by all means allow yourself to be cut down to size, but do not let yourself be dismayed or intimidated. Remember that the chorus of contempt has a diabolical conductor whose aim is to make your knees buckle. He likes tongue-tied, ineffective Christians and plays on your secret fears and inferiorities to make you one of them.

I am full of fears and chasms of inferiority. Whenever I have listened to the enemy pointing them out I have stopped working for the kingdom. Yet in those moments when I have refused to listen to him and have feebly walked in obedience, I have been astonished at what God has done with my feeble performance. - John White

A man who hid for 32 years fearing punishment of pro-Nazi wartime activity says he used to cry when he heard happy voices outside, but dared not show himself even at his mother’s funeral. Janez Rus was a young shoemaker when he went into hiding at his sister’s farmhouse in June, 1945. He was found years later after she bought a large supply of bread in the nearby village of Zalna. “If I had not been discovered, I would have remained in hiding. So I am happy that this happened,” Rus told a reporter. Throughout those years he did nothing. He never left the house, and could only look down at the village in the valley.

Today in the Word, October 17, 1993

During his years as premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev denounced many of the policies and atrocities of Joseph Stalin. Once, as he censured Stalin in a public meeting, Khrushchev was interrupted by a shout from a heckler in the audience. “You were one of Stalin’s colleagues. Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Who said that?” roared Khrushchev. An agonizing silence followed as nobody in the room dared move a muscle. Then Khrushchev replied quietly, “Now you know why.”

Today in the Word, July 13, 1993

Black Bart was a professional thief whose very name struck fear as he terrorized the Wells Fargo stage line. From San Francisco to new York, his name became synonymous with the danger of the frontier. Between 1875 and 1883 he robbed 29 different stagecoach crews. Amazingly, Bart did it all without firing a shot. Because a hood hid his face, no victim ever saw his face. He never took a hostage and was never trailed by a sheriff. Instead, Black Bart used fear to paralyze his victims. His sinister presence was enough to overwhelm the toughest stagecoach guard.

Today in the Word, August 8, 1992

When you fear that the worst will happen, your own thoughts may help to bring it about. “Fear,” a writer once said, “Is the wrong use of imagination. It is anticipating the worst, not the best that can happen.”

A salesman, driving on a lonely country road one dark and rainy night had a flat. He opened the trunk—no lug wrench. The light from a farmhouse could be seen dimly up the road. He set out on foot through the driving rain. Surely the farmer would have a lug wrench he could borrow, he thought. Of course, it was late at night—the farmer would be asleep in his warm, dry bed. Maybe he wouldn’t answer the door. And even if he did, he’d be angry at being awakened in the middle of the night. The salesman, picking his way blindly in the dark, stumbled on. By now his shoes and clothing were soaked. Even if the farmer did answer his knock, he would probably shout something like, “What’s the big idea waking me up at this hour!”

This thought make the salesman angry. What right did that farmer have to refuse him the loan of a lug wrench? After all, here he was stranded in the middle of nowhere, soaked to the skin. The farmer was a selfish clod—no doubt about that! The salesman finally reached the house, and banged loudly on the door. A light went on inside, and a window opened above. “Who is it?” a voice called out. “You know darn will who it is,” yelled the salesman, his face white with anger. “It’s me! You can keep your blasted lug wrench. I wouldn’t borrow it now if you had the last one on earth!”

Bits and Pieces, May, 1991, p. 23

In May, 1983, Charlotte Huddelston died after breathing argon gas mistakenly pumped into the oxygen system at Fort McLellan’s Noble Army Hospital—making her the third victim of the mix-up.

Apparently the five-foot white tank of odorless, nontoxic argon resembled those that usually contained oxygen. Although the argon didn’t poison anyone, it displaced the oxygen supply and suffocated its victims.

Today in the Word, MBI, October, 1991, p. 28

• Sometimes the Lord calms the storm. Sometimes he lets the storm rage and calms his child.

Source unknown

Two explorers were on a jungle safari when suddenly a ferocious lion jumped in front of them. “Keep calm” the first explorer whispered. “Remember what we read in that book on wild animals? If you stand perfectly still and look the lion in the eye, he will turn and run.”

“Sure,” replied and his companion. “You’ve read the book, and I’ve read the book. But has the lion read the book?”

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It is a poor thing to fear that which is inevitable.

Tertullian, third-century church father, speaking of death. “Keep your fears to yourself; share your courage with others.” Robert Louis Stevenson

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• Louis Pasteur is reported to have had such an irrational fear of dirt and infection he refused to shake hands.
• President and Mrs. Benjamin Harrison were so intimidated by the newfangled electricity installed in the White House they didn’t dare touch the switches. If there were no servants around to turn off the lights when the Harrisons went to bed, they slept with them on.

Jane Goodsell, Not a Good Word About Anybody, Ballantine

One summer night during a severe thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small son into bed. She was about to turn the light off when he asked in a trembling voice, “Mommy, will you stay with me all night?” Smiling, the mother gave him a warm, reassuring hug and said tenderly, “I can’t dear. I have to sleep in Daddy’s room.”

A long silence followed. At last it was broken by a shaky voice saying, “The big sissy!”

Source unknown

It is said that the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin so feared for his safety that his residence in Moscow contained eight bedrooms. Each night Stalin chose a bedroom at random to ensure that no one knew exactly where he was sleeping.

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During World War II, a military governor met with General George Patton in Sicily. When he praised Patton highly for his courage and bravery, the general replied, “Sir, I am not a brave man … The truth is, I am an utter craven coward. I have never been within the sound of gunshot or in sight of battle in my whole life that I wasn’t so scared that I had sweat in the palms of my hands.”

Years later, when Patton’s autobiography was published, it contained this significant statement by the general: “I learned very early in my life never to take counsel of my fears.”

Source unknown

• Peladophobia: fear of baldness and bald people.
• Aerophobia: fear of drafts.
• Porphyrophobia: fear of the color purple.
• Chaetophobia: fear of hairy people.
• Levophobia: fear of objects on the left side of the body.
• Dextrophobia: fear of objects on the right side of the body.
• Auroraphobia: fear of the northern lights.
• Calyprophobia: fear of obscure meanings.
• Thalassophobia: fear of being seated.
• Stabisbasiphobia: fear of standing and walking.
• Odontophobia: fear of teeth.
• Graphophobia: fear of writing in public.
• Phobophobia: fear of being afraid.

From Nothing to Fear, by Fraser Kent, Doubleday & Company, 1977.

• C. Swindoll, Three Steps, p. 137.

5-year old Johnny was in the kitchen as his mother made supper. She asked him to go into the pantry and get her a can of tomato soup, but he didn’t want to go in alone. “It’s dark in there and I’m scared.” She asked again, and he persisted. Finally she said, “It’s OK—Jesus will be in there with you.” Johnny walked hesitantly to the door and slowly opened it. He peeked inside, saw it was dark, and started to leave when all at once an idea came, and he said:

Jesus, if you’re in there, would you hand me that can of tomato soup?”

Victory in the Valleys, Charles Allen

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University reported that 30 years ago, the greatest fears of grade school children were:

1. Animals

2. Being in a dark room

3. High places

4. Strangers

5. Loud noises.

1. Divorce

2. Nuclear war

3. Cancer

4. Pollution

5. Being mugged.

Back to the Bible Today, Summer, 1990, p. 5

I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath—these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely—these are my native air.

A John Hopkins University doctor says, “We do not know why it is that worriers die sooner than the non-worriers, but that is a fact.” But I, who am simple of mind, think I know; We are inwardly constructed in nerve and tissue, brain cell and soul, for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality.

- Dr. E. Stanley Jones

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Acute stress can provoke changes in the heart that may lead to death, say Drs. Marilyn S. Cebelin of Cleveland and Charles S. Hirsch of Cincinnati. The two doctors recently identified 15 cases in which people died after a physical assault, although the injuries alone would not have been enough to kill them. Eleven of the 15 cases showed a type of heart-cell death called myofibrillar degeneration, similar to a reaction in experimental animals who are helpless to anticipate or avoid danger.

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An african man, as he was walking on the street he saw a black cat srossing over the road. He thought to himself that he was going to have a bad lack on that day. Worried about seing a black cat he asked his friend what would be his fate because of the black cat he saw in the morning. His friend replied, "that will depend on whether you are a rat or not." Know who you are in Christ and you will not fear.