a culture of fear

On March 4th 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his first inaugural address. In it he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

In the 74 years since we have seen the steady development of a culture of fear in our country. Fear the Soviets, fear the bomb, fear Y2K... And today we are constatnly bombarded by messages of fear. Just watch the evening news and you'll see that many of the stories revolve around this underlying theme.

Here's the rub as I see it. We spend so much of our time fearing all the wrong things. Living a life based on fear is no way to live life.

We're told to fear terrorism but the odds of being killed by a terrorist are far less than dying in a car accident. Countries all over the world have lived with this reality for years, even decades, without going off the deep end of protection.

We're told to fear the outbreak of a bird flu pandemic. Bird flu has killed some 200 people over the past decade. Your regular everyday flu kills 30,000 every single year. Roughly 6000 kids are orphaned by AIDS everyday.

29,000 people die everyday from hunger or hunger related diseases. We've been trained to fear why we see in the mirror by the newstand magazines despite that fact.

I've been asked a lot by people why I would let my wife go on a mission trip to a country caught in the midst of a civil war. Would I rather die being obedient to God, or in a car accident because I played it safe. Either one could happen. I guess that what it all boils down to is that I refuse to live my life making decisions based on fears of things that I don't really need to be afraid of. It saddens me to see how much we have let completely irrational fears drive and shape the culture we live in.

What a waste. Lets take a stand and live lives of freedom from fear. Do you believe that God is sovereign? If you really believe it then live it. Live a life of freedom and courage and deny fear power to control your life. Stop trying to put a face or name on fear and, as Roosevelt said, advance instead of retreat.