THE SECRET TO OVERCOMING OUR GREATEST FEAR

THE SECRET TO OVERCOMING OUR GREATEST FEAR

Dale Carnegie was a self-confessed worry-wart who suffered horribly from anxiety. In one of his books he described himself as “one of the unhappiest lads in New York” (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, 1948). He was fearful, anxious, and worried. Then something happened that changed him forever. F.W. Boreham was another person who battled with fear and anxiety. But unlike Dale Carnegie, he had good reasons for it. At the age of 15 he was nearly killed in a workplace rail accident which saw his life teeter in the balance for nine months. Doctors sent word to his mother telling her to prepare for the worst within the hour. Boreham’s severed right leg was amputated just below the knee in the best way they could in the 1880s, but the surgery was so crude that septicaemia soon riddled his body. Upon receiving the dire news, Boreham’s mother put her shawl on and went to her local church to pray and to plead for her boy’s life to be spared. Her prayers were miraculously answered but her son was understandably never the same again.

 

OUR GREATEST FEAR

You probably know what you’re afraid of. Some of us are fearful of heights. Others of us are fearful of spiders. Still some of us are fearful of speaking in public. I have a friend, who was in fact my tennis doubles partner for a couple of seasons, who confided in me that he was fearful of sharks. He also shared with me that he was going to do something about it so that he could overcome this fear (which he did). But our worst fears are not heights, spiders, the dark, or even confined spaces. At the root of our worst fears is our greatest fear – the fear of the unknown. (I suspect that the popular support for the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill unfairly takes advantage of this crippling fear!) The aged Dr. F.W. Boreham would later go on to write in his autobiography –

Like the medieval saint, we can testify that we have had many and great troubles in our time, but most of them never happened!
Dr. F. W. Boreham, My Pilgrimage, 221

In support of this discovery, we might paraphrase something that Mark Twain wrote as – 

“Our worst fears are the ones which never eventuate!”

People who see their life as something they have to live on their own, will often struggle with worry and fear – especially about the future. Kim was telling me that she saw a female performing artist on Youtube who shared that at the start of the 2020 year she established certain new year’s resolutions – earn more; travel more; socialise more; and take more control over her emotions (“stop crying so much”). Needless to say, she wasn’t able to achieve any of her goals! That’s the problem with making predictions – they often involve the future which can be quite surprising at times!

But there is a secret to overcoming our greatest fear – the fear of the unknown. This was what Dale Carnegie discovered, and what F.W. Boreham wrote so much about. It was King David discovered. 

¶ I sought the LORD, and He answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Psalm 34:4

 

FEARING THE LORD HELPS US TO OVERCOME OUR GREATEST FEAR

When the apostle Paul was in Corinth and things were turning ugly, we have reason to think that he became somewhat fearful.

 And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are My people.”
Acts 18:9-10

This was not the first time the Lord assured Paul that he would be OK, and, we might be forgiven for thinking that the reason he was reassured was because, as in the example above, the Lord reassured him that no harm would come to him. But this would miss the real reassurance that Christ gave him. The real reassurance that Paul received was that Christ was with him. 

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Second Corinthians 12:8-9

To fear the Lord is to trust the Lord.

You who fear the LORD, trust in the LORD!
He is their help and their shield.
Psalm 115:11

This is why when we pray we are expressing our trust in God. It is why making time to come together each Sunday is also a way of expressing our trust in God. Since we are all dealing with unknown futures (but not unknown to God) we are all subject to worry, fear and anxiety. But the more we can look to Jesus and cast our cares onto Him as an act of trust, the less subject we are to fears.

Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.
First Peter 5:7 NLT

This is the secret to overcoming our greatest fear.

¶ Who among you fears the LORD
and obeys the voice of his servant?
Let him who walks in darkness
and has no light
trust in the name of the LORD
and rely on his God.
Psalm 50:10

Your pastor,

Dr. Andrew Corbett

LEARNING TO HEAL

LEARNING TO HEAL

If it’s possible to have a favourite chapter of the Bible then Romans chapter 8 is mine. I often think of it as the ‘Treasure Chest’ of Scripture because it is almost of the culmination of God’s revelation of redemption. But it is also confronts the believer with the reality of living in a world where God at times seems distant and life seems unfair. While Romans 8:28, which is perhaps (if I’m allowed to have one) my favourite Bible verse, sounds inspirational, in the context of Romans 8 it is meant as a consolation (or comfort) for the suffering and confused believer who is dealing with disappointment, pain, hurt, mistreatment, and loneliness. If we learn anything at all from Romans 8:20, it is that we live in a world where people hurt, and long for healing. And if we look a little closer at Romans 8 we can see that there is a type of healing that requires learning.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope
Romans 8:20

FUTILITY

All creation is subject to futility. ‘Futility’ is anything which seems “useless or pointless”. This would include: pain, disease, breakage, loss, decay, injury, malpractice, and the effects of failure (of either procedures or equipment). Futility can result from inclement weather, natural disasters, or inherited genetics. But the worst kind of futility is the kind that is completely avoidable and utterly unnecessary and which is caused by a person needlessly hurting or harming another person. While this kind of hurt may result in physical pain, it nearly always results in an invisible pain called trauma. Trauma causes someone to continually live in the moment of their emotional/soul pain. Pastor Andrew Brunson knows what trauma feels like. He was a missionary in Turkey, one of the world’s least evangelised countries, and had been serving there for over 20 years. Then the Turkish government arrested him on charges of espionage and imprisoned for two years but not before the threat of being imprisoned for life. He suffered greatly during his time in a crowded prison cell which he shared with over 20 ISIS members being held on terrorism charges. One year after his release, he still has trouble eating and sleeping. He was tested for Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder after struggling for months after his release, but was eventually diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress instead. 

Even in laughter the heart may ache,
and the end of joy may be grief.
Proverbs 14:13

Pastor Andrew Brunson (centre of the picture), missionary to Turkey, was imprisoned by the Turkish government for 2 years and released October 2018

This invisible pain impacts how a person thinks and ends up distorting their soul – which cripples them emotionally. Someone with a distorted soul can look ‘happy’ on the outside but be aching on the inside. Because of the trauma they are suffering, their soul may have become distorted with misplaced guilt — where, despite being the victim, they are made to guilty for the abuse they have suffered by their abuser(!); or, unreasonable regret cripples them psychologically (“If only I’d…”) – which causes them to live disconnected from others and often leads them to always be disappointed in people generally. Such hurting people often become depressed and bitter and engage in unreasonable blame-shifting. These unchecked symptoms of trauma then become a downward spiral.

Pastor Rick and Kay Warren

A glad heart makes a cheerful face,
but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed.
Proverbs 15:13

The good news for anyone suffering from the pain of trauma is that there is a road to recovery and that many of the road markers toward their healing are to be found in Romans 8. Just ask Kay Warren, the wife of mega-church pastor, Rick Warren. Thirty-four years after her sexual abuse as a 6-year old girl, the effects of the trauma she had suffered for so long could no longer be denied or ignored. It crippled her and nearly ruined her marriage to Rick. She, and Rick, underwent three double therapist sessions per week for a number of years before her healing began. It was then that the statement, “It’s not your fault!” finally sunk in. It was then that the Scriptures in Romans 8 describing Christ bearing our guilt and shame finally sunk in.

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the One who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Romans 8:32, 34

HOW JESUS HEALED

It seems that most of the people Jesus healed were miraculously healed (that is, it could not have happened naturally) and that their healing was also instantaneous.

how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
Acts 10:38

Sometimes Jesus would heal people by touching them.

Then Jesus laid his hands on His eyes again; and He opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
Mark 8:25

Sometimes Jesus would heal people by speaking to them.

Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other.
Matthew 12:13

Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. ¶ Now that day was the Sabbath.
John 5:8-9

Sometimes Jesus would heal people by looking at them as they looked at Him.

When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.”
Luke 13:12

But not all of Christ’s miracles of healing were instantaneous. In the odd account of one blind man, Jesus progressively healed this man from his blindness (Mark 8:22-25). There are several possible things we learn from this account which at least includes the possibility that God sometimes deems it necessary not to heal instantaneously, but to outwork His healing grace over time. 

HEALING OF A WOUNDED SOUL SOMETIMES TAKES TIME

Kay Warren describes the wound she experienced as a 6-year old being sexually molested as always being there. This is one of the traits of trauma. Unlike breaking an arm or leg, she said, where the cast comes off and the bone has been reset and healed, the wounds that inflict a person’s soul, such as the abuse she suffered, do not have a ‘cast’ that can come off to mark the time of its healing. This is a common and frustrating experience for those whose souls have been wounded. Just when they think they have “moved on”, something triggers the trauma and they spiral down again. For Kay Warren, this was very confusing and after Christian counselling and therapy she now describes her ‘healing’ as incomplete until the Resurrection. Some wounds leave painful scars. 

An understanding of the insights gained from Romans 8 about the kind of pain people suffer over a lifetime reveals several important truths that can help anyone who would welcome even the kind of ‘partial’ healing that Kay Warren has now experienced.

HEALING FROM LEARNING

Misplaced and unrealistic expectations about healing can actually add to a sufferer’s pain. But from Romans 8 we can see that by learning its truths we can learn to be ‘healed’:

1.  This world itself is wounded by sin and those afflicted by the hurt of sin will perpetuate this hurt in others (Rom. 8:20).
2.  Christ by the Holy Spirit empathises and intercedes for those who hurt (Rom. 8:26-27).
3.  God is able to redeem pain, hurt, and injury (Rom. 8:28).
4.  In this life we can only ever experience partial and temporal healing—or ultimate healing will come in the Resurrection (Rom. 8:23).
5.  We worship, serve, follow and emulate a Saviour who suffered (Rom. 8:29).
6.  God’s love is outpoured on us even when we don’t receive the healing we long for in this life (Rom. 8:35-39).

As we continue to reach out to those in our world, we will increasingly be ministering to hurting, lost, lonely, wounded people. May God grant us the grace to minister His healing love to them.

-Pastor Andrew

ARE YOU AFRAID OF DRAGONS?

ARE YOU AFRAID OF DRAGONS?

How different would your life be if you were no longer afraid of anything? I’ll tell you: it would be different. My answer to my question is informed by a series of responses by a large group of elderly people gave to a survey asking what their biggest regret in life was. Almost without exception they responded by saying that their biggest regret was that they didn’t take more risks in life. With the benefit of their hindsight they could now see that what they were afraid of when they were younger was never worth being afraid of! 

Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6

Courage is not the absence of fear – courage is doing what’s right and noble, despite being fearful. God knows that we are all subject to various fears at various times to varying degrees. When He says, “Do not fear” – it is not a scold; rather, it is an infusion of His assuring Word into our fearful souls which enables us to be courageous – in much the same way that Christ’s word to Peter, “Come!” had the divine power to obey it infused into it (Matt. 14:29). Most of us fear the same kinds of things: being humiliated, being rejected, being harmed, being a failure, being a loser, and death. How different would our lives be if experience God’s reassurance in these times enabling us to have courage?

Fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
For I, the LORD your God,
hold your right hand;
it is I who say to you, 
“Fear not,
I am the one who helps you.”
Isaiah 41:10, 13

F.W. Boreham loved cricket. As a boy in the school class room he would often be caught daydreaming as he imagined himself on the cricket ground enjoying all of the delights of the sport he loved. Having matriculated high school at the age of 15, his father arranged for him to be a junior clerk at the local brickworks. A part of his responsibilities was to make sure that the early morning train out of the brickworks yard had the correct number of carriages with the correct loading. One particularly foggy Kentish morning he and the signalman went over to the tracks as usual and F.W. Boreham confesses in his autobiography that his propensity for daydreaming probably caused him to be somewhat negligent about where he was standing as he checked off the carriages. As the train was about to come past them, the signalman pushed the points lever to switch the tracks for the train – but what Frank Boreham had neglected to notice was that these were double points with a dual lever. As the signalman pushed his lever forward the other lever, which the young Boreham was in front of, knocked him onto the tracks in the path of the oncoming train! It was around 50 yards before the loaded train could stop. Frank’s right leg had been severed just below his knee. It was 1886, and medical treatment for such injuries were extremely crude by today’s standards. FWB contracted septicaemia and was given only a slim chance of survival. Medical staff did their best for him, but eventually they realised there was nothing more they could do for him. They telegrammed his mother to advise her that within the hour her son would die. Frank Boreham’s mother immediately went down to her church and pleaded with God to spare her son. She would later write to her son –

“Then I knelt by myself” Boreham’s mother told him, “and I prayed for you. I told God that if He gave you back to me, I should always regard you as His own, and I vowed that I would never rebel against any use that He wished to make of you. When I rose, I felt that an intolerable burden had been lifted from my heart.”
Crago, p. 26

Frank had a sudden and miraculous recovery the very moment his mother prayed and offered her son wholeheartedly to God and His service if He would spare his life. Throughout the rest of life, Frank was never able to play his beloved cricket again. But when he moved to Hobart he got involved in the Hobart Cricket Club and soon became its president. Upon moving to Melbourne in 1916, he became a member of the Melbourne Cricket Club and became one of their most loyal members, never missing a first-class match. 

And he said, “O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.” And as he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, “Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.”
Daniel 10:19

When F.W. Boreham was discharged from hospital and came home to recuperate, the day came when he could return to work. As he walked from his front door on his way to the Brickworks he had barely made it past his front gate when he lost his balance on the icy pavement, slipped, fell and broke his left leg. He would break this leg another three times throughout his life and would live in the constant fear that this would happen again. Added to this constant fear, Frank was incredibly shy and had to work incredibly hard to be around people. When he wrote his autobiography he would reflect- 

Like the medieval saint, we can testify that we have had many and great troubles in our time, but most of them never happened!
F.W.Boreham, “My Pilgrimage”, 1939, p.221

Boreham learned that each of his fears could be overcome doing two things: (i) keeping his focus God and living in His presence (Matt. 6:33). In his classic book, A Bunch of Everlastings, he quoted Brother Lawrence to make this point, “Were I a preacher, I should above all other things preach the practice of the presence of God; and, were I a director, I should advise all the world to it, so necessary do I think it, and so easy, too. I cannot imagine how religious persons can live satisfied without the practice of the presence of God: while I am with Him I fear nothing, but the least turning from Him is insupportable” (p. 34); and, (ii) walking in faith rather than according to his natural feelings. To this end he determined to lay down his life and shyness for Christ and try to develop Christ’s heart for people by initiating celebrations with others around significant dates and events in his life. This included his birthday, his ordination as a minister, his induction into his pastorate, his wedding anniversary, and the anniversary of his church.

Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Luke 12:7

As someone who battles with shyness, I have learned from F.W. Boreham about how to deal with it and glorify God in the process. Yet, I know that for many of us, fear can be crippling. It’s common for people to fear the unknown. The future is unknown. It’s common for people to also fear change. People bring change. People can be scary. If I could give everyone who battles with fear two gifts, I would want to give them the two gifts that God has given me through F.W. Boreham – a greater vision of the grandeur and beauty of God, and, a holy courage to do what is unnatural but good by choosing not to be intimidated by people.

THE THING ABOUT DRAGONS

There is a classic story about a boy and his dragon. One day he comes into the kitchen and asks his mother whether there is such a thing as dragons. She tells him of course not. But Mum, he protests, they must be real, because there is one in my bedroom. That’s ridiculous his mother tells him. The boy returns to his bedroom and the dragon is now bigger. The boy then asks his mother to come and see the dragon in his room. Shoe comes to his bedroom and refuses to acknowledge that there is actually a dragon there. As she persists in her denial of dragons, the dragon gets even bigger. In fact, the dragon gets so big she has to move around it to vacuum the house – yet she persists in denying its existence. At the end of the day when her husband arrives home from work he finds that their entire house is now missing. A neighbour comes over and tells him that a giant dragon poked its feet through the floor of their house and walked off with it. The father tracks down their house and asks the dragon to return their house, to which his wife joins in the request (finally acknowledging the existence of the dragon), to which the dragon agrees and puts their house and then begins to shrink back to its original size. The moral of this story is that when we avoid and deny our fears they only get bigger and scarier. 

The fear of man lays a snare,
but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.
Proverbs 29:25

In the closing book of the Bible, Christ is introduced to His frail and fearful first century audience by telling them fear not!    

¶ When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead. But He laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 
Rev. 1:17

And then His Revelation closes with the best reason ever for not ever being afraid of the dragon again.

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Revelation 12:9

And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
Revelation 20:2

It is my prayer for you that whatever dragons you’ve been afraid of, that you will now get a revelation that Christ is greater, grander and more glorious than any dragon! With your eyes fixed on Christ and your heart set on walking after Him by faith, you no longer have to be a slave to your fears and you can now live with the constant assurance that God is your heavenly father who has adopted you as His child – and He is the kind of Daddy who always looks after His children!

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
Romans 8:15

 Your pastor,

Andrew