Sunset, fear and faith

Today, it was cold. We worked in the snow and when we were driving home, the thermometer showed 24 degrees. It was a good day.
One wonderful thing about this time of year, is, as I have mentioned before, the ability to see the sun come up and the sun go down. Today, I was standing on the roof of a house watching the sun make it's last push to the horizon. The flames burned the sky, scorching clouds in reds and oranges. After cleaning up our tools and piling in the pickup, the drive home came. The sun, still in it's course below the horizon, continued to put on a show causing windmills and farmhouses to be silhouetted against it's dying brilliance. As I sat there, with the hum of the tires, the blowing warm air and the sound of country music in the background, I wondered how beauty like this could be orchestrated every day and yet not be the same as previous days. How could people believe it happens by accident? How could a world so steeped in brokenness, pain and destruction continually create breath-taking scenes? In my 3 months on the road this summer, I never stopped contemplating this point. Just in our small section of the world, there is unbelievable beauty, even in snow flakes gathering in the frozen mud of a farmplace.

Fear and Faith. This is another of many questions floating through the matter in my brain. I have heard many opinions about fear and faith and how the two fit together. My own opinions can only be based upon what I read in the Bible and what I have experienced in my own life. Some people will say that if you fear, then you have no faith, or at least, very little. I don't agree.

In the instances where God has asked me to do something, there is usually fear. This usually occurs because God asks me to do things outside my comfort zone and naturally, that produces fear in me. The times I obey, I feel like I was in the right, fear or not. To me, fear is something that makes me rely on God that much more because some of the things he has called me to do, there is no way I could have or would have ever done them. In this way, I know that it is only through God that I did those things. Otherwise, I could have made an argument that it was through MY will or MY power that I did them, but because of my fear, I know it was not I, but HIM.

Did David fear when he saw Goliath? Did Moses fear when he first stood before Pharoah? Did Elijah fear when he challenged the prophets of Baal on Mt. Caramel? Did Peter fear when imprisoned? Did Paul fear when he was being stoned?

I can't say for sure, but I know that they were all human, as we all are. Humans have fear and I believe it is something that drives us and makes us more reliant on God. We cannot deny something that is part of our makup as human beings. I will say this, as Christians, fear cannot be something that rules our lives, but it should be a motivator, a driving force to call on God, because when we do that, miracles happen, God works.

I get a picture of "Batman Begins." In the movie, Bruce Wayne is afraid of bats and there is a scene in the movie where he embraces that fear and chooses to push it on his enemies. He is in the soon to be "bat cave," and scares the bats with a light. The start fluttering and squealing and he falls to the ground in fear. But, he falls on what he has learned about himself and slowly begins to stand up in defiance and in absorbing his own fear. It is something he recognizes, acknowledges, and uses as a driving force to battle evil.

Maybe as James says "I'll show you my faith by what I do," I should say, "I'll show you my faith through my fear." Maybe that doesn't make sense. Heresy? Ah, there need to be a few heretics to liven things up... right?