Fear Not

God Answers Me

Chapter 79
Day 79
Psalm 86:7
When I am in distress, I call to you, because you answer me.

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Preface

The way of fear is the way of division. Think about a knife slicing a tomato on a cutting board. The knife is fear. The tomato is humanity, collectively representing all human beings. And the cutting board is the world.
Faith, on the other hand, has the tomato and the board, but no knife. The tomato remains intact, whole.
Fear produces a specific type of thinking, predictable thoughts that produce predictable emotions, behavior and beliefs.
There's an order of creation that originates from within each of us, one thing that sequentially leads to the next in the same way every time, like a set of predetermined dominoes.
We only get fear from the ego, the first domino in the line. The ego is a false sense of self. It's a figment of the imagination, a mask constructed to act as a shield behind which people hide from hypothetical emotional harms that may occur in the future. It's what the world teaches children to shape and mold within themselves to serve in place of God, no different than sculpturing an idol.
One of fear's most destructive victories over humanity is its establishment of the belief that anything external has the power to control what we think and feel internally. (We really need to flip the script on this.)
Fear severely handicaps people's ability to think and feel independently of the circumstances and events that exist and occur external to them. It's in this way that fear serves as the world's tool for teaching lazy cognition. Fear's like a tranquillizer to the brain, dampening its activity down to near zero. Fear says, 'Let the world show you how you should think and feel, then imitate accordingly.' It encourages us, through example and peer pressure, to turn conscious awareness off and trade it in for falling asleep behind the wheel, resting easy in the driver's seat of long-established bad habits, which only make life unnecessarily difficult. This is no different than being made into an animal, or robot.
As many people do today, the Israelites exemplified this process over and over again.
Whether conscious of it happening or not, we worship what we see in the mirror. How? When we choose to look with the eyes of the Spirit, we see God, as he made us in His image. And our worship is exemplified by the internal work we do to break free from fear's imposed chains of limitation and come to see our reflection in the mirror align more and more closely to the reflection of Christ who looks back at us.
When Christ looks in the mirror, the only reflection He sees is that of each of our faces.
As an exercise in expansion, what if we read the following verses in the provided order? We'd see how revelation expands the mind and Spirit in real time:
1) Genesis 1:26,272) Romans 1:22-23,253) Colossians 1:15-174) Romans 8:295) Colossians 3:9-106) 2 Corinthians 3:187) 2 Corinthians 4:68) James 1:22-249) James 3:910) 1 Corinthians 13:12
But when we choose to look with the eyes of the ego, we downgrade ourselves to the image of an animal. And so we feel compelled to make a god that more closely reflects how we see ourselves.
(As a side note: For relationship purposes, this process works similarly between people. We're attracted to those who're most reflective of how we see ourselves in the mirror of our mind. If our confidence or self esteem is low, for example, then our standards lower and we find interest in someone with low self esteem. But if our confidence is high, we'll find that we're attracted to someone who's also highly assured. As confidence raises, our image of ourselves shifts, changing the type of person with whom we can see ourselves.)
It helps to think of ourselves as having four eyes, two that are activated with faith and two that are activated with fear. When one set is turned on, the other's turned off. And the world looks very different through faith than it does through fear. It's the difference between being grounded in the light or untethered in the void of space, states we can toggle between in the blink of an eye.
The Israelites repetitively turned off their faith eyes, turning on the ones of fear. Consequently, they'd shift from Spirit to ego, seeing in themselves more animal than a divinely-created being. (The form the animal would take was dictated by the cultural example to which they were exposed.) And then they would turn their backs on who and what they truly were within.
When leaving Egypt, the Israelites jumped back and forth between God and a cow, Egyptian society having told them that the golden calf was god. The livestock that God created for them to rule over, (Genesis 1:26), they made to rule over themselves.
Today, instead of a cow, scientists work hard at making monkeys out of us all.
Fear focuses in on the external and material. And the more externally minded a person is, the more neglectful of the internal they prove to be, causing all hell to break loose in their life. Health, environmental and relational conditions degrade and die.
Faith, though, focuses on the internal and spiritual. Analogously, it's the difference between hardware and software; a Newtonian engineer and a quantum physicists. Except, with humans, the internal determines the state of the external, not the other way around.
So fear comes from ego. Then from fear we get judgment, the next domino in the line. And judgment falls into bias.
Bias presents itself in different forms, such as being prejudiced for or against others, having preferences that paint people as being either less or more, being racist or tribalistic.
It's important to note that fear will often confuse tribalism for racism, when the two are actually different. Modern expressions of tribalism are a preference for the known, familiar practices of a specific sub-culture, which can be represented by diverse races. Racism believes that one's race, based on the color of their skin, defines a specific culture and is superior to another race and its stereotyped culture. There are many who're accused of being racist, who in fact have no issues with the race in question. They just don't identify with a sub-culture, no matter what diverse group of people number its ranks.
Only fear has the capability of reducing human beings down to the color of their skin, and defining 'culture' by that color. For a mind and heart expanded by faith, it would be too emotionally uncomfortable to attempt compressing life and love down to such limited superficial considerations. It would feel like what it is: compressing the unlimited down into a box of limitation. In the face of the reality revealed so clearly from the elevated perspective provided by faith, such limitations don't make sense. They look like insanity.
From the different forms of bias we get hate, intolerance, impatience, anger, sadness, rage...all the emotional states that, if thought of as energy, would be signal scramblers of what would otherwise be our intended states of peace, joy and love. Negative emotions disrupt and muddy the water of Spirit. They divide the heart.
It's from these emotional states we get violence, all forms of crime, infidelity, addiction and war. It's also how we get genocide, Holocausts, internment camps and slavery.
Following these steps, from the ego to violence, reveals how fear leads to sin--falling short of our intended purpose here on earth--and death. It reveals how people become oppressors and oppressed, and make socialistic, communistic and tyrannical sub-cultures into national cultures...just before they collapse.
Fear, then, really is a state of dis-ease. It's a virus spread only by people. Ultimately, without fail, as demonstrated throughout all of recorded history, fear ends with the destruction of all infected races, tribes and cultures. Fear does not discriminate against any of the people it directs to discriminate against each other. It ensures they kill, steal from and destroy each other equally.
Fear's results are born out of the tomato cutting itself into smaller and smaller pieces, people splitting themselves off into smaller and smaller groups, based upon disagreements between the group-defining labels. It's sibling rivalry to the extreme. A nation of people is a family, despite how much "fun" they put into dysFUNction. But, when fear predominates perspective, it's a family intent on using world-based ideas that place style over substance, form over function--surface considerations that destroy substantive connections.
Fear trades the profound in for the superficial.
What the eyes see become what's chosen to worry about, over what the eyes don't see. Fear highlights the differences over the commonalities. And then we tear ourselves apart.
There's no faith, love or God in this practice. It only represents an acceleration toward the members of ALL the in-fighting groups tripping over and collapsing in on themselves, positioning the nation to be overtaken by an outside force.
Having something against another is how we cut ourselves apart. Fear's division results in those feared being hated, killed, oppressed and enslaved. And all the labels for which each represented group fought so strongly become the last thing on the minds of any of the surviving members, because now the substantive things they took for granted--food, water, clothing, shelter, health, safety, freedom--have all been stripped away.
But there's another line of dominoes. Faith also produces a specific type of thinking, predictable thoughts that produce predictable emotions, behavior and beliefs. We can only get faith from the Spirit. Spirit is the true underlying force given to each of us at birth, and it's activated; more like, unleashed, only by faith.
The word "spirit" is used in three different ways in the Bible.
1) 'Spirit' is translated from the Greek 'pneuma,' which means: a 'current' of air. It's taken from 'pneo,' meaning to 'breathe' hard. It represents the immortal rational soul of a human being, implying 'vital principle,' and mental disposition. This is what God breathed into us at our creation and at each of our births.
2) 'Pneuma" is compared, though not to be confused with, the Greek word 'psyche,' which also translates to mean 'breath,' but in this case to breathe softly. This too implies 'spirit,' but of the mortal animal sentient principle only. It's from this spirit (small "s") we get the term 'pyscho,' which means a cold inanimate breeze; to voluntarily breathe gently. This term tends to be used to describe the animal spirit.
3) Then there's the Greek term 'zoe,' which means 'life,' stripped down to 'mere vitality.' This is used to represent the spirit of plants.
"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17).
"...the Spirit is the truth" (1 John 5:6b).
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31).
The truth sets us free from the chains fear binds us with and the path through hell on earth it forces us to follow.
Where fear leads to destruction, imprisonment, oppression and death--whether by self or others--faith sets free. Where fear cuts apart, faith reunites, heals and makes whole.
From faith we get love. Love is acceptance and unity, from which we get patience, gratitude, empathy, compassion and loving-kindness. And these in turn consistently result in long-term healing, safety and peace.
Where the labels born of fear intend to divide, the labels that come from faith unite. Where fear places the greater focus on surface differences, to the exclusion of what's in a person, faith focuses in on the more profound differences born from what makes us all the same.
Faith looks at another person and sees first and foremost family. And that connection is chosen to be more important than any past action or current philosophical or political difference insisted on by the evil of the ego.
If anyone's confused about whether or not they're operating from a place of fear, they only have to consider the internal fruits--the quality or nature of the thoughts and feelings they most often have and entertain--and the external fruits--the type of events that most often occur in their lives and the circumstances in which they frequently find themselves.
If thoughts and feelings are predominantly negative--judgmental, accusatory, condemning or hateful--for example, maybe toward people who think, feel and believe differently on political issues, then fear controls. (It's ironic that, despite how great fear is at dividing people into increasingly smaller and smaller groups, it does a terrible job of separating the vessel from the disagreed-with label the person within the vessel has adopted.)
Love is not agreement. In fact, more often than not it's the ability to agree to disagree. Love can agree to care deeply for each other 'because' we think and feel differently about what world issues are important. Moreover, it's the investment in the support of our ideological opposites, contextually recognizing we all march together to our individual death beds.
The most effective way to ensure that the cause for which we passionately fight fails is to hate a person who stands in equal support of the opposite position. Why? Because, if they're likewise more predominated by fear than faith, our hate--whatever form it takes--will make sure that they do the same toward us. Then it's no longer about the cause. The cause only becomes a mask the ego wears, behind which the fight becomes focused on "winning," whether we or they are right or not. The cause gets placed on the back burner, and we end up canceling each other out.
But if they're predominated by faith, then what's our positions of fear going to be able to achieve against them? They're going to extend only love in response to us while the quality of their sincerity is going to win greater support from society. We'd be like ripples from a puddle crashing against the side of a mountain. Puddles evaporate in the light of the sun. Mountains don't.
But if we're both operating from faith, then the problem we wish to address gets solved faster, as we approach it from more than one angle. And both sides become stronger.
By 'support for opposites,' this isn't saying love supports hate, or faith supports fear, or Spirit supports flesh. Light doesn't "support" the dark. Light changes the dark to light, and it needs zero amount of force and argumentation to do so. It knows itself with unquestionable faith and just fills the void, no force needed.
Support for opposites is love's way of seeing the person, made in God's image, independently of the current en vogue issue(s) of the century. (In the next century, they will all be different, but love will remain.) So let's solve problems, but not by creating the far worse one of tearing each other apart.
Ego only wins when everyone it controls loses, so it makes the feelings of needing to "win" very strong. Its control comes from convincing people that the feelings to win at any cost are 'their' feelings. And people too often mistakenly put more faith in emotional content that leads to failure than they do in spiritual direction that leads to success. (How often do we see in the news "thou shall not kill" lose to someone having felt strongly that they had to murder someone? They chose egoic emotion over spiritual direction, and the enemy laughed at its victory over both the victimizer and the victim.)
The feelings serve only the ego, not the people involved. (We wouldn't knowingly allow an enemy to walk us off a cliff, but it happens everyday.)
Whenever fear's involved with the creation of Lose/Win, Lose/Lose scenarios, no one actually won. Fear won and we've all lost.
This isn't saying anything against competition. Without competition we stagnate and die. David's prayers point to the place within us from which we enter into competition. Spirit reveals itself present amid the endeavor when everyone involved benefits. Win/Win scenarios can only be achieved with Spirit's involvement.
Love reveals what fear makes impossible to see: There is no opposite position. (We're all people made in God's image, standing on earth, endowed with talents intended to edify each other.)
The concept of "opposite" results from False Evidence Appearing Real (F.E.A.R.). And it conveys that both parties are missing a vital piece of the puzzle. It's that missing piece that ends up bridging the gap between both sides. Until it's discovered, the issue hasn't developed far enough to reveal all of its pertinent details, and we don't know what we don't know. (Fear will never help in the development of anything.)
Ignorance is ego's playground of discord. It's the darkness that knowledge's light purposes to dispel.
Faith directs us toward the benefits that result from loving those we compete with, encouraging each other to make one another stronger. Spiritual competitions recognize: 'If I win, I win. If I lose, I win, because I learned how to do it better next time.'
Spirit recognizes growth never has to stop.
Fear creates insecurity, cutting growth off through dishonest means when it feels it's ahead. One of fear's favorite rules states "Get out while you're ahead." It settles for incremental gains with long pauses in between each advancement.
Faith inspires two competitors to help each other. It's counterintuitive to the the way fear sees things. If I keep making sure that my competitor doesn't fail; for example, pointing out mistakes they make that may lead to their professional demise, and they do the same for me, we create Spirit's 'Triangle of Victory: We--the triangle's two base points--win, and those we serve--the top point--wins.
But faith's connected to God, who's not a zero-sum game. There's more than enough to go around.
Fear's connected to faulty premises about the world, convincing people that there's not enough for everybody. But Faith would ask, "Not enough what? #2 Pencils? Not everyone wants #2 pencils, but there are enough of them for that parentage of people who do."
But fear loves hyperbole. It sensationalizes. Fear imagines a few people to be everybody. And, buying into this, fear's adherents end up handicapping the rate at which they're able to be of service and they introduce actions born from enemy emotional states that lead them off a cliff.
A simple way for someone to determine whether or not they're caught in fear's net is to ask if they're honestly excited for life. If life's not seen as a gift worth celebrating, then this points to one thing: There's an issue within. There's more of the world's way of looking at life than there is of Love's way.
And a primary contributing factor for a lack of joy is found in the failure to recognize: If we see an external problem in the world, then the only reason we've been positioned to see it is to purpose toward solving it, but only while simultaneously supporting in our heart others similarly positioned in front of their own problems to solve. (Fear covers people's eyes with the blindfold of complaint. No one's ever been positioned to complain or condemn...these are fear practices. Faith acts.)
Once we exercise the courage to 'live' the purpose that's been set before us, it's then that we step down from the river's bank, into the flow of life. And it's there we experience, many of us for the first time, an indescribable sense of satisfaction.
But while we remain standing on the sidelines, our heart's divided. And a natural, unavoidable consequence of a divided heart is a disconnection from our joy. To be unhappy is to have allowed fear to shatter focus into a countless number of things to complain about, things we use to justify recoiling from those most in need of light; or from unwanted circumstances calling for our action and growth.
Imagine if Jesus only helped those who were like Jesus. But who did He choose instead? He loved those whom most everyone else hated.
Fear is an idol that works hard in the world to replace God. Worse, it then acts as a filter through which it tries to make God appear as everything other than who and what He actually is and represents. Fear's an idol that teaches how to blame. Then fear directs blame toward the only One who had nothing to do with fear's mis-interpretation of whatever unwanted event occurred. This is like seeing someone rob a bank, then randomly picking someone from the Yellow Pages to blame.
Flooding the body with fear's negative emotions has a terrible side effect of turning the heart into stone. But fear will distract us from noticing what it's doing to our hearts by flooding the screen of our eyes with a million reasons to complain, while cultivating the faith-destructive belief that the heart has to be hardened for self-defense purposes.
There's nothing more self destructive a person can do, nothing that leaves a person more vulnerable to pain, misery and attack, than a hardened heart.
What fear doesn't reveal is that only it connects our emotional states to the expectations we hold for others. Love only has expectations of ourselves. And when we align ourselves with that which is God, then we're about giving all that He represents to others in the same way He gives to us; the same way the sun gives us light and the clouds give us rain--unconditionally. (Matthew 5: 45)
The sun and rain are given equally to all. And this giving is a vessel of God's messaging to us. How far into fear we've allowed ourselves to fall determines how difficult being like the sun is thought to be. But how successful our lives become is determined by how courageously we lean into and break through that wall of fear, in order to get back into the thriving, protective space of love.
Imagine soaking a sponge in water. Then putting the sponge in an oven preheated to 500 degrees. All the water evaporates while the sponge hardens and burns.
The water is life, its proverbial molecular makeup comprised of empathy, compassion, patience, discipline, peace, joy and love. The sponge is the heart. The water is what allowed the heart to feel, care and be sensitive to the Spirit's prompts that help us stay in a place of light, life and love and to know if or when we risk encroaching into the territories of darkness, death and becoming judgmental.
A sopping wet sponge is no different than a heart that overflows with all that is good and true. Such overflowing happens from the inside out; it's internally inspired, not externally justified. And only faith--that inner calm confident assurance found in knowing we're loved, safe and provided for--opens the heart faucet, pouring the truth into, for and through us to the world.
We give water to the thirsty. Their thirst called out to our open, listening heart. We heard, felt their distress and answered them. This type of giving (re)connects us to them, while providing the initial sprouts of faith for them to tentatively give likewise in the future and reconnect to us and others in turn.
Our distress calls are answered because we answer the distress calls of others. This is what faith, love and God look like here on earth.