When Fear Overcomes Me
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” Romans 8:35 (ESV)
The alarm clock glows green in the darkness. It seems stuck on 3 o’clock. Sleep eludes me, although I feel shattered with exhaustion.
I started a new project and it’s weighing heavy on me because I know I am fallible. I may leave gaps, forget important details, make mistakes and hurt others in the process. It’s quite possible that I will fall short of other people’s expectations. I may prove insufficient or just plain bad.
In an odd way, this scenario reminds me of soldiers of old.
Ancient Roman soldiers sometimes used a short sword they called the makhaira for eliminating their enemies. Because of its compact length, the soldier had to draw very near to his victim, almost like an intimate embrace, as he delivered the final strike. In that moment, all the victim could see was the face of his assassin. He forgot the world, he forgot hope and lost his fragile grasp on any remnant of a fight lingering in his heart. He saw only that hard, unflinching face bent on his destruction.
It is this particular word for “sword” that the apostle Paul uses when he asks the questions found in our key verse: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” The makhaira?
Clearly, I have never been a Roman soldier. But I think I know what it’s like to have a makhaira pointed at my jugular. Its name is Fear.
Like that short Roman sword, when fear comes, it is as if the world disappears so I can only taste and smell and see one thing: The ugly face of fear.
In my mind, Jesus fades, and fear becomes a giant.
Perhaps one of the greatest areas of fear is our work. The work of our hands has so many complex, emotional threads connected to it. We long to be useful. To make a difference. To meet expectations. Add to that the reality that in our world, one’s stability is often attached to work.
We can’t pay the rent unless we get paid. Whether you’re a mother, doctor, loan officer, teacher, receptionist or work in any other field, we all face a multitude of pressures regarding our work. There are layers of fear running through our jobs, layers that, to some degree, remain beyond our control.
The prophet Isaiah said, “You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear” (Isaiah 54:14b, ESV). In other words, fear causes oppression.
In all its iterations: anxiety, worry, agitation, trepidation, panic, fear of failure, of rejection, of letting people down, of abandonment, of not measuring up, of being sick, of ending up alone, of the calamity that might visit our loved ones, financial fears, fear of death — every manner of fear is a chain that binds. Oppresses. And one day, Isaiah says, that oppressive fear shall cease. It shall cease because the Messiah will overcome it.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall fear? Certainly not.
