“Do not be afraid.” (Matt 10:26) Four amazingly simple words. There is a claim that between the Old and New Testament this phrase (or a form of it; i.e., fear not, have no fear, be not afraid) is referenced 365 times – which equates to one for each day of the year. So, these words must be difficult to live by.
Studies show that 85% of the things we worry about never happen. We can agree that is a lot of time and energy wasted, when we could utilize it on more useful things, such as exercising, reading, volunteering… and yes even golfing. Or would it be better for us to use this extra time in another way?
First, we have to identify our fears. Sure, we can begin with the typical list of snakes, spiders, heights, mice… Or we can go with sickness, death, cancer, failure… Or we can go with homelessness, loneliness, forgetfulness, depression… The list of possibilities is endless, but I do not necessarily think these are the fears that Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel.
Throughout scriptures we are told that being a follower of Christ is not going to be easy so perhaps that is where some of our fears come from. For many of us, we fear that we are not smart enough to speak about our faith. Sure, we have a strong belief in God, but we do not know how to talk about God much less quote a Bible verse. That is where other Christian faiths have us beat in their ability to quote scriptures – but that should not hinder us. We know God exists in our heart and our soul – we just need to get more comfortable with the idea of speaking about our faith and our beliefs.
Many of us fear what the future might bring so we are constantly wondering about what is going to happen. The human characteristics of wanting control can play havoc on our daily lives, but what good does it really do? A lot of time and energy is wasted on wanting control of things we truly cannot control. Our faith teaches us that God is in control not us, yet we still continue to try.
Then there is the fear of not being accepted by others. We all want to be accepted by the people we meet, by those we love, the people we work with, and the strangers we meet. As Christians we are taught that we are to live the Gospel, yet we find it difficult to talk about our faith to a fellow believer, much less with someone who does not share the same beliefs. Unfortunately, many of us struggle with speaking about our faith because it is not necessarily acceptable to our society today.
So, we need to start worrying less about things we cannot control and utilize that extra time and energy on something we can control – our own personal relationship with God. As Catholics we have countless ways to do that. We have to find our own distinct way of communicating with God (prayer, scriptures, bible study…), then our own unique relationship with God will develop, and fortunately we will find ourselves becoming more comfortable with the person God created us to be. It will be through that comfort and acceptance that we will develop the courage to speak up about our faith, and our love of God to others.
In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus said to the Twelve, “Fear no one… What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops” (Matt 10:27). As we go through our busy week let us try to “Let Go” of our fears and “Let God” help us live our faith through words and actions – even from our housetops if the occasion arises. Who knows, perhaps as we build up our relationship with God, we might find that our fear of snakes, spiders, heights, mice, sickness, death, cancer… might subside as well.