Open Letter to Max Lucado #1.012 – Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear
(Click here to download the first chapter of Max Lucado’s Fearless.)
Chapter 1: Why are We Afraid?
Page 12
+ “Jesus doesn’t want you to live in a state of fear. Nor do you. You’ve never made statements like these: My phobias put such a spring in my step. I’d be a rotten parent were it not for my hypochondria. Thank God for my pessimism. I’ve been such a better person since I lost hope. My doctor says if I don’t begin fretting, I will lose my health.”
You’ve written a successful series of humorous statements here. I chuckled and winced while reading this (which was probably your intent, unless I miss my guess).
+ “To be clear, fear serves a healthy function. It is the canary in the coal mine, warning of potential danger. A dose of fright can keep a child from running across a busy road or an adult from smoking a pack of cigarettes. Fear is the appropriate reaction to a burning building or growling dog. Fear itself is not a sin. But it can lead to sin.”
I’m glad you included this. To discount the value of “right fear” (if I can call it that) would be to discount the “fight or flight” mechanism God placed in each of our skulls, the sympathetic nervous system. God created each of us in such a way that we be able to exert “control over the necessary bodily changes needed when we are faced with a situation where we may need to defend ourselves or escape.” (source) Very thankful that God has thought of everything we would ever need.
? / – “If we medicate fear with angry outbursts, drinking binges, sullen withdrawals, self-starvation, or viselike control, we exclude God from the solution and exacerbate the problem. We subject ourselves to a position of fear, allowing anxiety to dominate and define our lives. Joy-sapping worries. Day-numbing dread. Repeated bouts of insecurity that petrify and paralyze us. Hysteria is not from God. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear” (2 Tim. 1:7).”
Two things, and I’ll close for the day.
First, I’m curious why, among all of these very legitimate consequences of fear, you leave out the most important one of all: Being fearful when God has commanded you to take heart is sin. What possible value does this value have for the Christian if you’re not going to discuss how important it is to live victoriously (since Jesus has indeed won the victory) in the face of danger and struggle so that we sin not? I don’t get it.
Last, 2 Tim 1:7 is clearly a reference to believers. Can we now assume that you’re writing to believing Christians? If so, please read the above paragraph about fear and sin (because I still don’t get it).
(I’ll have more on Fearless by Max Lucado next Thursday. For past responses to Fearless, click on the following posts: Title & Table of Contents, Testimonials, Pages 3-5, 6a, 6b, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.)
(One more thing. I’ve compiled my earlier analyses of Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile by Rob Bell and Don Golden. Simply click on my title, Clear as a Bell, and download for your own instruction.)
