The Problem of Fear

When I was young I loved to write stories. Stories about detectives solving crimes, race car drivers, baseball players struggling to reach the majors and much more. But the one theme I kept returning to over and over was fear. Looking back now the fingerprints of my unresolved fears were all over my life.

I really don't remember confronting my fears, at least not in childhood or in my teens. And though I've experienced my share of pain and loss throughout my life, I don't remember being consumed by fear and dread. Until a fateful night when I was in my early twenties, while hiking alone in Moab, Utah. There was no external catalyst to provoke a feeling of fear but I was suddenly overcome nonetheless. I remember wildly looking around, even stumbling to the point of falling the in cold red dirt, but I couldn't locate the cause of my intense fear. This consuming feeling stayed with me for a few days and then left as suddenly as it had arrived. I couldn't explain it to my friends and there was no reason I could ever give for this experience. To this day I still can't recall any particular trigger for that unusual outburst but I can still vividly remember the emotion that racked my body, mind and soul for what seemed like days. All-consuming fear.

The Power of Duke

The year is 1980. Walking to my car with my friend Steve after working a long shift. I remember it was raining, a steady downfall.  Steve had been talking all day about this new album from his favorite band and I finally agreed to listen to just one song before I headed home.

Now my '74 Nova may have not been a lot to look at from the outside but the inside contained a state-of-the-art Pioneer sound system. The glow from the blue lights of the sound system lit up the interior as Steve handed me the cassette. I pressed the rewind button to play the first song. The whirring finally ended. I pressed play . . .

Relics And The Past

In Rome, in the Vatican Museum, are 28 marble stairs. Once a year the Vatican opens up this exhibit to the general public and removes the wooden covering protecting the marble stairs underneath. These stairs are called the “Holy Stairs” and they were brought here from the palace of Pontus Pilate located in Jerusalem. Tradition says that Jesus Christ ascended these chairs after being convicted by Pilate and beaten by his palace guards. There are three crosses on the stairs that represent the locations where Jesus collapsed and shed drops of his blood. Pilgrims wait for hours for the privilege of ascending these steps and replicating the climb of their Savior.

It has been over two thousand years since Jesus died and was resurrected and people are still fascinated by the relics of his past. Items such as the Holy Grail, The Shroud of Turin, and many more to numerous to list in this post. (You can click here to view a partial list) This desire to touch something that has been used by the Divine, is not, of course, confined to just Christians. And it's not just confined to religious artifacts.

The Deception We All Face

Some of us might recognize this verse from the Bible, "So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13) In that verse Paul is summing up his chapter on the importance and virtues of love. We are reminded that God himself is love. (1 John 4:8) In fact, Jesus included the action verb "love" when He was summing up all the components of the law into just two commandments. (Matthew 22:37-40)

I set the table with these verses because I wanted to point out the difference between these verses and their counterparts, the words that drive the sins and bad choices that are most likely to destroy our physical, mental and spiritual lives. God gives us words of life and hope but the enemy goal is to steal, kill and destroy. 

The Bible says that Satan is the great deceiver. We see this from the very beginning in the Garden where Satan twisted the words of God to Adam and Eve in hope that they would choose sin over obedience. This pattern of behavior continued, all the way to the book of The Revelation, where we see that in the future, Satan will try to replicate God's Trinity. Satan's end game has never changed. History records the destruction that evil has brought about in this world. The entire Bible speaks to the deception and lies that Satan uses to deceive the people of earth. So, having been thoroughly warned, why do so many of us fall for his traps?