The destructiveness of fear

As Mike has articulated:

The reality of life is suffering.
The reaction to suffering is fear.
The response to fear is the choice to either trust or control.
The effect of control is to propagate suffering.
The result of trust is transformation.
The mechanism of transformation is death.
The opportunity of death is resurrection.
The outcome of resurrection is true life.

Fear is a crippling problem we all deal with, and most of us (dare I say we
all?) don't even know we are reacting in fear to events. When we do, the
life robbing dominoes quickly begin to fall. Worse yet, we don't just rob
ourselves of life and liveliness, the effects propagate and start robbing
life and liveliness from everyone around us.

Parents that live with fear teach their kids that fearing is normal.
Children learn to unconsciously accept fear, and it is normal to fear. They
begin to define how they are going to live our their entire lives based on
fear.

Corporations that fear create cultures at work that then operate on fear.
Decisions are made accepting fear that ultimately affect how staff are
treated and limited in success and liveliness due to the fear that the
company has accepted. Worse, many companies propagate fear in a way to
control staff and customers, defining what is accepted and using fear to
maximize their sales.

My Dad is visiting right now (pictured), and it occurs to me that one of the great
things my father did for me as a kid, was to live fearless. Sure, you can
poke holes into things that happened and find failures: he's only human.
I'm sure some would say that there are consequences to living fearless, and
they would be right. If you own your life and fears, you force others to
deal with their own anxieties.

But I credit my father with giving me a sense of fearlessness that has
helped me. Yet, when I get all balled up and take the time to sort out why
I'm whacked out, you can always trace issues back to fear, and my lack of
control over something that I simply cannot control.

Many would also say that we have to accept and deal with some fears. Fear
is valid! Well no, being sensible by weighing fears and making good
decisions is really a lot of effort, but is what we have to do. Once you
sort out what you need to own, make your own choices for what you want, then
the fear is gone. You choose, and liveliness abounds. Fear, and trusting
God cannot coexist, without taking away your trust in God. Why would we do
that?

I would suggest that if you believe that fear is OK, you are not free. And
you disagree with Christ.

John 8:36 (New International Version)
36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

ADDED NOTE:

Just a note on the consequences of avoiding dealing with fear.

It occurs to me that we only have 2 choices here: ignore self awareness about the subconscious fears that define you, or a *LOT* of hard word to begin to understand how fear defines you.

By choosing the former, you cannot care fully for those around you, and must protect yourself and withdraw. You end up isolated and in a position of hardening yourself to the hurt you inflict on others.

The later is a lot of work, but is where you enable meaningful relationships with others and genuinely are able to care about them.

What if there is proof that Jesus was the Jewish messiah?

I think it's fair to say that most Church going Christians understand something of the Jewish history, as least as far as the Old Testament goes, and the tension that Christ, or the Messiah brought. I think most people understand that at the time of Christ, the Jewish people were looking for their Messiah to come. Christ's coming was foretold in the old testament which was studied as a core part of the culture and recognized to be coming, prompting the wise men to visit Christ at his birth. I think it's fair to say that 'the coming Messiah' was pretty much common knowledge.

I've heard it explained that under the oppression of the Romans many Jewish faithful were focused on (doomed to fail) incremental political change and were simply wanting to be freed from political oppression. That of course is a huge misunderstanding of what Christ was trying to do. Christ wasn't here to control, he was here to give his life away. I've even heard it suggested that Judas' motivation for betrayal might have been to spur on Christ to make His move to politically set the Jewish people free. Ooops.

If Jesus really was the Messiah, why did the people of the day have such a hard time changing gears and ended up 'missing it'? I'm afraid it's just the same struggle that we all face: It's just really hard for anyone to realize that things around you don't need to change: what needs to change is inside us.

I would be fascinated to read about anyone in the Jewish community that has wrestled with this and wondered in retrospect if Christ was it. With all the weight of 2000 years of Jewish tradition, this would be very hard to even contemplate, perhaps not even possible if for no other reason than there is no hard proof documentation linking Jesus Christ to the long awaited Messiah.

Until now, perhaps.

A tablet said to date back to the first century BC could redefine links between the Christian and Jewish religions by predicting a messiah who would rise again after three days.

Israel Knohl, a biblical studies professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, said his interpretation of the Hebrew text on the tablet could "overturn the vision we have of the historic personality of Jesus" Christ.

"This text could be the missing link between Judaism and Christianity in so far as it roots the Christian belief in the resurrection of the messiah in Jewish tradition," he told AFP.

The amazing thing here is the fact that the text pre-dates Christ, but clearly points out the 3 days of death then resurrection. Historically, there is nothing directly linking Jesus as the Messiah, other than Christ's claims and the witness of others, which is has been discounted. This text as part of the Jewish tradition links the messiah with 3 days of death and resurrection before Jesus comes. Wow.