Fear Factor

A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion.

MARK 4:37–38

FRIENDS OF OURS HAD TWO CHILDREN IN COLUMBINE HIGH School during the terrible shooting attack of April 1999. Several other tragic events—largely unreported nationally—assaulted the city over the ensuing months. On top of all this, a disturbed church member started violently harassing my friends’ family (both are on staff at a local church) by throwing manure on their car, writing filthy graffiti on their church office windows, slashing their tires, and once even bashing in their car windows outside their home.

All the tragic events happening in the city, combined with the personal war waged against the family, led my friends’ young daughter to say, “I can’t take this anymore.” They somewhat reluctantly agreed to send their daughter to an out-of-state boarding school. After months of research, they chose a highly respected private institution located in Long Island, New York.

My friends dropped off this psychologically shaken girl in New York on September 9, 2001. Forty-eight hours later, terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center.

Most of our children will never face such a traumatic series of events, but even for those of us who live in anonymous towns and face normal, coming-of-age challenges, fear for our children is an occupational hazard, because the dangers are very real.

The great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon addressed this in one of his sermons. You’ll recall that Jesus once fell asleep during a storm so fierce that his disciples feared for their lives. We know Jesus cared enough for his disciples to die for them, yet in this moment of crisis his calm attitude was so steady it almost tempts us to believe he didn’t care—or to conclude he lived with an absolute trust many of us lack. Spurgeon deftly compared Jesus’ calm demeanor to our fretful worrying: “We do not have half the confidence in God that we ought to have—not even the best of us. The Lord deserves our limitless belief, our unquestioning confidence, our undisturbed reliance.”^a

Can any of us suggest that God isn’t worthy of “our limitless belief, our unquestioning confidence,” even “our undisturbed reliance”? And yet, how often do we fret, as though his providential care simply can’t be counted on with regard to something as precious as our children?

Just as Jesus put all his confidence in his Father, so, Spurgeon said, we should put our confidence in the same heavenly Father:

If a watchman were hired to guard my house, I would be foolish if I also sat up for fear of thieves. Why have a watchman if I cannot trust him to watch? “Cast thy burden upon the LORD” (Psalm 55:22 KJV), but when you have done so, leave it with the Lord and do not try to carry it yourself. Otherwise, you mock God; you use the name of God, but not the reality of God. Lay down every care, even as Jesus did when He went calmly to the rear part of the ship, quietly took a pillow, and went to sleep.^b

Jesus’ confidence in the heavenly Father gave him a fierce freedom that could stare down any storm, because Jesus never compared the storm to those under his care; on the contrary, he compared the storm to the God who rules the weather. He wasn’t careless about his disciples’ welfare; he simply felt certain of his Father’s providential involvement, concern, and sovereign protection.

I’m perhaps most convicted by Spurgeon’s charge that we use the name of God, but not the reality of God. Sometimes when I fret, I find myself acting like a functional atheist, claiming belief while stubbornly refusing to exercise—or at least rest in—faith. Perhaps God gave us children in part to make our own faith more real, to keep us from settling for merely naming God rather than pushing into the reality of God.

Spurgeon freely admits that caring for children, more than anything else in human experience, has a way of pushing fear into our hearts:

You feel that you cannot cast upon God your burden of concern about your children. But your Lord trusted the Father with those dear to Him. Do you not think that Christ’s disciples were as precious to Him as our children are to us? . . . Our Lord regarded with intense affection those whom He had chosen and called, and who had been with Him in His temptation. Even so, He was quite content to leave them all in the care of His Father and go to sleep.^c

How can we argue with this? Do we really want to suggest that Jesus acted negligently with his disciples, or that he didn’t truly care for them? He knew he was sending them into a dangerous and theoretically fatal encounter—but he also knew the encounter would be governed by the providence of God and filtered through his loving care, not determined by chance. Some of us parents insult God by verbally placing our children under his protection but then worrying as though he were either deaf or powerless. Spurgeon gently encourages us, “No horrible turn of events has ever occurred in a matter that I have left in God’s care.”^d

Much of our fretting is simply a lack of faith. We have a God; why worry as though we don’t? This week, let’s begin the journey of confident reliance on God by asking ourselves some rhetorical questions that will cement this truth to our souls:

• Who cares more about our children—us, or God?
• Who is better able and more equipped to protect our children—us, or God?
• Who looks on our children with greater understanding of the future—not just in ten years’ time but for all eternity?
• Who has the power to make all things turn out for the good for those who love him and have been called according to his purpose?

Let your children make God’s care and providence ever more real to you. May we one day be like Jesus, whose great confidence in the heavenly Father enabled him, even in the midst of a storm, to quietly fall asleep in all peace, entrusting those he loved to the care of his Father who never sleeps.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that while you rule the heavens and the earth you are intimately watchful over every one of your children. We place our kids in your care. Give us the faith to leave them there. In Jesus’ name, amen.