Vision: Faith in Fearful Times
“With the power of God within us, we need never fear the powers around us.”
-Woodrow Kroll
One of the greatest challenges every leader faces is looking ahead with faith during fearful times.
Some people are naturally optimistic and hold a very positive outlook while others tend to be more pessimistic and, therefore, hold a more cautious or even negative outlook. But don’t confuse faith and fear with optimism and pessimism. They may be cousins, but they are quite different.
A few days ago, Gina and I were spending the evening with three of our grandchildren while their parents were at a Christmas party. Eventually, the time arrived for our grandkids to go to bed and Gina took them to their rooms, read them a book, prayed over them, and sent them off to sleep. After a few minutes, our granddaughter came out and said she sometimes is afraid. So Gina took her back to bed, spent a little more time with her, and then shared a scripture verse with her. The verse is Psalm 56:3, “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You.” What an encouraging verse of scripture for my granddaughter, for me, and each of us.
If we take a look at the news headlines from the past few weeks, we realize that the outlook for 2024 is certainly not the best. For example, there are two major wars that in some way or another impact our own country. We have a serious problem of immigration that only seems to be intensifying without any plan to address it. We have college and university campuses demonstrating that they are havens for hate speech against Jews. Some of the economic forecasts for 2024 are certainly discouraging. If all of this isn’t enough, we have a looming presidential election that is sure to be more divisive than even the most recent ones. Candidly things look bleak for the future.
We can’t change the headlines and we are certainly limited in what we can do to change the future. But there is something a leader, especially a spiritual leader can do. We can look ahead, in faith without fear. We can look ahead knowing that regardless of the economic, military, or political outlooks, that our Lord Jesus Christ is greater than all these things. And HE is our hope and the reason we can look ahead in faith without fear!
Fear is simply an awful enemy. Fear can cause a person to do irrational things. Fear and its friends worry and anxiety can handcuff a person. Fear lies to us and tells us there is no hope. Fear leads to depression. And fear leads to terrible decisions we would never make if we were thinking calmly and clearly. Fear is indeed an awful enemy.
But here is the good news, we don’t have to live in fear. We can live in faith, in trust.
But that leads to another question. Faith in what or trust in what?
Are we to have faith in fate or destiny? Are we to have faith in positive thinking or an optimistic outlook? Of course, the answer is no. Our faith, our confidence, and our trust are in Jesus. He is the One who began our faith and He is faithful to mature our faith.
There is not one thing going on in your life right now, in the life of our country, in the life of this entire world, of which Jesus is not fully aware. There is not one decision being made that will surprise Jesus and there is not one challenge today of which Jesus is not greater. Things may be getting dark in the world but, as Dr. Adrian Rogers said, “Things are getting gloriously dark!”
Leadership carries with it the heavy burden of looking ahead by faith and setting aside fear. As the year ends, I encourage you to hold on to what Gina shared with our granddaughter from Psalm 56:3, “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You.”
This is the final Leadership Blog for 2023. I am already working on 2024 and look forward to sharing some things with you at the beginning of the new year. Until then, have a Merry Christmas, and may this season end and the next one begin WITH FAITH as you lead by “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” (See Hebrews 12:2.)