Fear Itself

Interesting, isn’t it, how, every once in a while, a few words – a point in a sermon, a comment in conversation, a sentence in a book – hits your mind like a hard jab to the ribs?

A bit of wit … a nugget of wisdom … a simple truth of unusual clarity sinks in, grabs us by the collar, shakes some things loose in our head or heart.

Last night, it was a line in a film called The Reivers, starring the estimable Steve McQueen. Those who remember McQueen tend to associate his characters with an attitude (cool), a speed (fast), and action (violent). But his character in this movie involved none of those things, and the result was a pleasing change of pace, a picaresque tale set in the Deep South of 125 years ago.

At the climax of the story, McQueen’s character offers a gentle admonition to a shaky young boy who's bracing himself for a necessary, but dangerous, undertaking.

“Listen,” McQueen tells him. “You can be scared if you want to – you can't help that. But don't be afraid, son.”

The boy nods his head, steadies himself, and proceeds – to great success.

Had never really considered that distinction before: being scared versus being afraid. It brought me back to something Jesus said so often, throughout the Gospels: “Fear not.”

He never says that casually, the way we might say, “No worries,” or “Hang tough.” It’s always a deliberate statement – a command, really – and it seems to suggest that our fears are something within our power to control.

Only: so many of our fears don’t seem to be. Can’t remember every being in a scary situation where my conscious thought was: “Okay, begin trembling.” The frightening thing, whatever it was – a bully, a bulletin, a diagnosis, an embarrassment – just engulfed me, suddenly, like an ocean wave from behind, leaving me floundering frantically in the undertow.

And Jesus Himself surely understood that. Even the quiet confidence of His own divine nature gave way, for a little while, to sweat drops of blood, that last night in Gethsemane. Our Savior could not be afraid – but in those moments, He certainly seems to have been scared. Even He, shackled by mortality, “couldn’t help that.”

So – what, exactly, is the difference? Between being scared – which is okay – and being afraid – which is not?

I’m recalling a scene from another old movie: The Desperate Hours, in which a suburban family finds their home invaded by a murderous trio of escaped convicts. The father moves … well, desperately to outwit the killers before they can harm his wife and children. By the movie’s climax, he’s managed to dispense with two of them, and slip his wife and daughter to safety – but the worst of the convicts remains, holding a gun pointed at the dad’s little boy.

What the father knows – and the son and the killer do not – is that the gun is empty.

The convict demands the dad move out of the way, so he can escape with the boy as his hostage. But the dad refuses. “Come here, Son,” he says to his boy.

“Kid, one move and I blow your brains out.”

“Son. Trust me. Come here. Don’t be afraid.”

The boy is obviously, understandably terrified. But, in the end, his love for and faith in his father gives him the courage to break away and run to him – despite the snarling threats of the killer.

And that has to be the difference. Of course, a child with a gun to his head is scared. There are things in this life that can kill us, wound us, destroy the treasures and the people we care about most. But, when it comes down to it, the boy believes in his father more than he believes in the gun.

That is what sets true love apart from all the great pretenders to the title. Love chooses to believe, rather than fear. Thus, the ultimate proof of love is faith.

But there is no faith, without something so scary that it requires our faith in our Father to surmount it. The choice, then, is between looking beyond what (understandably) scares us – or letting it blind us to what we know about Him.

Ulysses S. Grant tells in his memoirs how, early in the Civil War, he was ordered to lead his first command over a hill and into a valley where a strong Confederate army was said to be waiting.

“As we approached the brow of the hill,” he writes, “my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on.”

Coming over the hill, Grant found that the enemy troops had … fled.

“My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that [the enemy] had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before, but it was one I never forgot afterwards.

From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his.

“The lesson,” Grant says, “was valuable.”

Anxiety, “more or less” – but no trepidation. A little scared, maybe – but not afraid.

Faith, it turns out, is a great way to scare up some courage, just when I need it most.