Fighting FEAR

Photo By Christopher Lukanich

Our children are taught daily to be afraid. The constant news cycle, the “Breaking News” pop up on our phone, plus our own desire to protect them from everything in the world that could go wrong, has led them to believe that the world is a dangerous and scary place. Frankly we are stress out by this constant stress and fear and we have passed it on to our children.

The media and marketers tells us all the time to be afraid that we can’t protect our children or that we will screw them up by giving them too many boundaries or not enough boundaries, etc. Our kids see the same type of marketing in everything. Anxiety and isolation are the rule in our society, it seems and all of it is driven by our fear of each other and ourselves.

Please do not confuse caution and fear. Caution is wisdom and awareness of possible danger while Fear can become something irrational that control our actions and decisions.

This problem of fear has been around since the Garden of Eden. It is part of the nature of the world. Fear is being used by evil to control us.  I believe the Satan use what we believe to be good to divide and conquer. Fear is a way to keep us apart from one another and not trusting in God to provide for us. When we are fearful we no longer look for what makes us part of a community but we look for the way in which we or someone else doesn’t belong.

When fear controls us we are not living the Christian life and we are not teaching our children that God is the source of all GRACE. It is not an accident that “Do not be afraid” is stated in scripture more than anything else. God know that we are control by our fear and that when we are taught to trust the Gospel break through.

Teaching our children to be Fearless in this world is a revolutionary act.

Photo by Christopher Lukanich

Today’s Scripture is: Mark 1:9-13

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Questions to ask:
  • What did you notice first in the reading?
  • What does Jesus learn about himself from God after his Baptism? What do we learn about God from Jesus’ time in the wilderness?
  • Was Jesus afraid in the wild? What does that mean for us as Christians?
  • What are you afraid of? How can I help you with that fear? (This is what scares me and this is how I have learned to control it.)
  • God provides us with everything we need in this wo
    rld and God never leaves us so we have no reason to be afraid.
  • How can we help each other to not be control by our fears? What does being fearless teach the world about our trust in God?

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