The Three Kinds of Fear

When I was a child, there was a song titled “One of These Things is Not Like the Other.” It was sung as a kind of game to teach children to identify what makes things the same and what makes them different. Often there was a photo of three or four items and the child had to choose which one did not belong with the others.

This is true with the word “fear” in the Bible. God’s word talks about three kinds of fear, but one of them is unlike the others.

Fear in the Bible

For those familiar with the Bible, it is common knowledge that “do not fear” is a frequent command found throughout Scripture. This command is often found in the context of divine revelation, such as when God’s people were called to fight a battle or when a prophet warned of pending punishment for sin. This command was intended to comfort God’s people and to encourage them to trust in him. One such example is when Moses led God’s people through the Red Sea:

“And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever” (Exodus 14:13).

When the Bible says, “do not fear,” the word fear refers to terror or panic. There are two types of this fear in Scripture. The first kind is often called “natural fear.” It’s the kind of fear that comes naturally to humans in a post-fall world. We live in a world where there are natural disasters, pandemics, losses, violence, political upheavals, and more. We all know what it’s like to approach a dangerous situation and our heart starts pounding and our adrenaline spikes. We quickly move ourselves to a place of safety. Natural fear gets us to run out of a burning building or find safe shelter in a thunderstorm. Natural fear is something even our Savior felt as he faced the cross that was to come (see Luke 22:39-46).

The Bible also mentions another kind of fear and this is the kind of fear that rules over us. It governs our choices and directs our path. It’s the kind of fear that becomes a pattern and ready response to the circumstances of our life. This kind of fear is sinful fear because it keeps us from trusting in and depending on God. We instead turn our gaze to the troubles around us, rather than to the One who rules over all things. We often seek out false saviors to rescue us from our fears, including our own strength and wisdom, rather than God.

We see an example of such fear in Exodus 32, when the Israelites feared that Moses would not come down from the mountain where God was giving him the Law. Instead of waiting for his return, they built a golden calf to worship. We also see the Israelites fearing other nations that were seemingly bigger and stronger than they. When the spies were sent into the land of Canaan to assess what was there, all but two of the spies returned with a fearful report about giants in the land (Numbers 13). The Bible also talks about the fear of man, as when Peter refused to eat with the Gentiles because he feared what the Judaizers thought of him (Galatians 2:11-13).

A Greater Fear

There is a third kind of fear in the Bible and this fear also comes with a command: fear the Lord. “Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him.” (Psalm 34:9) Yet the word “fear” in this context does not refer to terror or panic, but to awe or reverence…to read the rest of this post, visit enCourage.

To listen to the accompanying podcast with enCourage, click here.

A Prayer for Greater Fear

My book, A Holy Fear, releases a month from now. I’m knee deep in preparations for its delivery into the world— working with the launch team to get the word out about it, as well as sending out articles, and recording podcast interviews. And in the midst of all this busyness, I feel that all too familiar emotion creep in: fear.

I find myself thinking, “What if I fail? What if what I’ve written falls flat? What if no one reads it? What if no one understands what I was trying to communicate? What if they hate it? What if…?” Perhaps you are familiar with these fears, those emotions which appear when you’ve completed something you’ve labored hard at producing. Or when you share something you’ve created with others. Or when you invite someone in to see your inner thoughts, longings, hope, and dreams.

As I face these fears— the fear of failure and the fear of man— the irony does not escape me that my book is about fear and turning from those fears to a greater fear, the fear of the Lord. And here I am facing my own lesser fears! All too often, I have to apply the very things I write about to my own life; I have to preach the same truths to my own heart.

That’s what I’m doing today as I pray this prayer for a greater fear. Perhaps you’ll pray too?

A Prayer for Greater Fear

Father in heaven,

I come before you with a heart all twisted around with nerves and worries and fears. My mind is distracted by all the what if’s of life. My lesser fears are dragging me down places I know I should not follow. So I come to you, my Father, and seek refuge in you.

Your Word tells me not to fear. It teaches me that my identity and meaning are not found in what people say or think about me. It’s not found in how affirmed I am. It’s not found in whether or not I succeed at something. Who I am is inexorably linked with who Christ is for me. I am your child. I am in the beloved. The smile of your affection shines upon me. This amazing and glorious truth stills and calms my heart. I am yours and you are mine. What wonder!

You’ve also taught me to fear you—not in the same way that I fear failure or what other people think—but to honor and revere you. To come into your presence with awe and wonder. To respond with love, trust, and obedience. To see that you are greater than all that I fear.

Because you are greater. You are the One who is wholly other. You stand apart from everything else. Nothing and no one can compare with you. You are holy, righteous, and good. You alone are sovereign over all things. You alone know the end from the beginning and hold the world in the palm of your hands. You alone know the number of hairs on my head and the length of my days.

And yet.

And yet, you’ve made me your own. You chose me in love before the foundation of the world. You made a way for me to be your child through the perfect life and sacrifice death of your Son on my behalf. He removed the barrier of sin that kept me from you. I can now come before you in confidence and seek your help and grace. I can call you Abba, Father, and you hear me. What grace!

Hear me now as I bring this prayer before you. Forgive me for looking for life and meaning outside of you. Forgive me for my lesser fears. Forgive me for the ways I seek my own glory, rather than yours. Forgive me for not trusting you, but allowing my fears to distract me from you.

I pray you would develop in me a greater fear of you. As John Bunyan wrote, “Pray therefore that God will unite thy heart to fear his name; this is the way to grow in the grace of fear.” I pray you would work in my heart and strip away my lesser loves. Make my heart a place where the fear of you grows and thrives. I pray that I would love, honor, revere, trust, and obey you above all else. I pray you would grow greater in my eyes. I pray I would find refuge in who Christ is for me, that I would keep the gospel ever before me. I pray that your extravagant grace and love for me would cause my lesser fears to shrivel and shrink in comparison.

Keep my gaze fixed on you this day.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

Join the Launch Team for A Holy Fear

Calling all book lovers! I’d love for you to join the launch team for my next book: A Holy Fear: Trading Lesser Fears for the Fear of the Lord.

Do you have fears in your life? Have you ever wondered why the Bible says both “do not fear” and “fear the Lord?” Have you wondered just what it means to fear the Lord and what this fear looks like in the Christian life?

Join the launch team for A Holy Fear to read the book before anyone else. On the launch team’s Facebook page, I’ll share insights from the book and talk about what you are reading. I’ll provide fun challenges and ideas on how to help get the word out about the book. There will even be giveaways to enter!

Here’s what a couple of readers have said about A Holy Fear:

“This book couldn't have come at a better time. Every day, we wake up to news reports and social media posts that fill our hearts with fear. Our neighbors are worried about finances, health, safety, and security. We are too. Thankfully, Christina Fox redirects our hearts in the pages of this book. Rather than fearing the daily worries of life in a fallen world, she tells us, we need to cultivate a holy fear of the eternal God who rules the universe. Only in rightly fearing God will we find rest from all our other fears. And, in fearing God, we will find abundant life. With rich theology, careful Bible exposition, and helpful study questions, A Holy Fear will lead you by the hand to the place of safety and security we all desire.” —Megan Hill, author of A Place to Belong: Learning to Love the Local Church, editor for The Gospel Coalition, and pastor's wife

“Christina Fox invites readers to tread upon holy ground agape with wonder for the utter perfection of God's nature. But the author doesn't stop there; she leads God-fearers from the glorious summit to practical daily life. Be aware: A Holy Fear will shrink your lesser fears to give birth to profound adoration and worship of the magnificent One who made us for His possession. Shoes are optional for this transformative pilgrimage led by a fellow traveler.” —Leslie Bennett, Director of Women's Ministry Initiatives, Revive Our Hearts

Have any friends you think might want to join you on the team? Send them here to this post.

To join the launch team, click here. Fill out the information form and you’ll receive an email with additional information and instructions and a pdf of the book to read. Have questions? Leave a comment below. I look forward to seeing you on the launch team!

God is Both Sovereign and Good

I recently commented to a friend that if there is one thing I’ve learned this year, it is the importance of holding all my plans loosely.

So loose, it’s like I’m not holding them at all.

When the year began, we all had plans and expectations for the year. We moved forward with those plans until a virus was placed in our path and life suddenly slammed on the breaks, upending everything. It was jarring and we still haven’t recovered. Everything’s been upside down ever since. We’ve experienced significant changes in our jobs, our children’s education, our worship, and even to the way we relate with others. We’ve learned not to make plans and if we do, to hold them with open hands.

For many, 2020 feels like a year of interruptions. Of upended plans. Of starts and stops. Of constant change.

At least that’s been my experience.

One recent afternoon, both my husband and I were headed different directions—one to pick up a child up from school, the other to take a child to their game. And then my husband fell and broke his foot. All our plans skidded to a screeching halt. We’ve since had to reorient our lives around this accident. It’s been a significant interruption. And sometimes, I just want the year to move on and finish in the hopes that maybe next year will be better.

As believers, when life’s interruptions cut into our carefully laid plans, we know they are not random. They aren’t simply the result of bad luck. They are divinely placed in our life by our sovereign God. “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things” (Is. 45:7). Our God is not a distant God; He rules over all he has made, from the hearts of kings (Prov. 21:1) to the number of hairs on our head (Matt. 10:30). He determines the course of history and all he wills comes to pass, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Is. 46:9-10).

The doctrine of God’s sovereignty is one I’ve turned to many times in my life. When life is hard and I face hardship and suffering and trials, I remind myself, “God is not surprised by this.” While the interruptions of life catch me off guard, God is never surprised by them. He not only knows all that will take place, he ordained all things and ensures that his will comes to pass.

Including the year 2020.

While Christians may mentally assent to the Bible’s teaching on God’s sovereign rule, they may have difficulty trusting in his rule. God’s sovereignty isn’t necessarily a comfort they find rest in. This happens when we look at God’s sovereignty in isolation from his other characteristics. It is important to remember that God’s sovereignty doesn’t exist in isolation; it is fundamentally linked with who he is in the entirety of his character. When we remember that God is holy and righteous—that all he does is perfect, good, and right—then we know he will govern and rule out of his righteousness. When we remember that God loved us in Christ before the foundation of the world and adopted us to be his own, we know that the circumstances he brings into our lives are ordered out of that love.

Because God is both sovereign and good.

God is perfect and wholly good; he is incapable of doing anything that is not good. This means all his ways are good. From the world he created to his acts in history, from his perfect plan for our lives to his kindness poured out on us in Christ—all that he does is good. “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” (Deuteronomy 32:4).

James tells us that all good things come from God. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." (James 1:17). In spiritual terms, darkness implies evil and there is no darkness in God—he is the Father of lights. He is the source of all goodness and everything he gives us is good and for our good. This verse also tells us that God never changes; there is no "variation or shadow of turning." Our God will never show goodness toward us and then change his mind; he is always good toward us.

When we face interruptions in our life— whether it’s a small one like a fender bender on the way to work or a big one like a world-wide virus—we have to remember that God is both sovereign and good. While the difficult circumstances we face in life are not good, we have a good God who rules over them all. Though we do not understand what is happening and why, we can take comfort that he does. We can trust that all he ordains for us is for our good (Rom. 8:28).

Even when life is interrupted, we can expect good things from our good and sovereign God.

Want to learn more about God and his character? Check out my next book: A Holy Fear: Trading Lesser Fears for the Fear of the Lord.

A Mother's Reflections on the Passing of Time

When I first became a mom, I received lots of advice. Some of it I asked for, some of it was unsolicited. Sometimes it was a friend telling me about their favorite parenting book or the best place to buy diapers. Sometimes it was a stranger in the grocery store voicing their how-to solutions for anything from child safety to potty training to incorporating veggies into my toddler’s diet. Then there were those who insisted that I must follow “So and so’s method” or I’d never survive the 2’s and 3’s— and whatever that so-called life saving method was varied from person to person.

But there was one piece of advice I received that I’ve thought about every year since. What was the advice? A mentor casually said to me something I’m sure many parents hear: “Enjoy each moment for it passes all too quickly.” She had just entered the empty nest stage of life and I could see memories flash across her eyes as she looked at my son resting in my arms.

When she said those words, I remember thinking, “I only wish it went by fast!” and tossed it aside with the rest of the well-meaning advice I received. Those days, I was deep in the trenches of early motherhood where time seemed to stretch out like an afternoon shadow. And then the sun would rise on another morning and I’d be reminded that another night went by without any sleep.

But as time went by, and the fog of fatigue faded, I remembered the advice. And every year around this time I reflect on her words. That’s because my oldest turned 16 yesterday. 16! It seems like just last week I was reading him a bedtime story while he lay snug in his blue racecar bed and then asked me to read five more. It feels like yesterday that I sat watching him cover every inch of the great room floor with an elaborate train track and a few hours later asked me to video every. single. cannon ball jump into the backyard pool. Long gone are the days of playing Battleship and building Legos and answering impossible “Why?” questions. Instead, these days are filled with instructions on safe driving and how to use a calendar to organize school work and reminders to study for the SAT. And asking the one question no parent will ever receive the answer to: “Why do you leave empty boxes in the pantry?”

When I consider how fast time has gone by and that I only have two years before he likely leaves home for college, I start to panic. Have we taught him everything he needs to know? What have we missed? Then part of me wants to treat these last two years like a study cram session. I want to make flash cards and quiz him on all the life lessons we’ve taught, the theology we’ve imparted, and all those important instructions that are guaranteed to save him from near death if only he follows them exactly as instructed.

But I know that the age of 18 isn’t some kind of expiration date, as though everything a person needs to know must be imparted by that time or they’re out of luck. I also know that most of the lesson’s he’ll learn in life will happen in adulthood, in those years when he stretches his wings and explores both his gifts and this great big world God has made. I know too, from experience, that he’ll have to fall to learn the most important lessons of all.

And so, while I will continue to teach my son what needs to be taught and gently lead and guide as needed, I also want to do what my friend told me all those years ago, “Enjoy each moment for it passes all too quickly.”

Everyday Faithfulness in Seasons of Waiting

The year was 1943. My grandparents were married only a few months when my grandfather joined the Army to fight in WWII.

Over the course of that year, my grandfather would travel to bases in VA and GA to complete his training before heading overseas to Europe where he would eventually receive orders to head to the beaches of Normandy in June of the following year. A technical problem would delay him by a day or two, protecting his life and ultimately, that of my own. For my grandmother, the year of 1943 was a year of waiting. Waiting for letters from my grandfather, waiting to hear where he was and what he was doing, and like the rest of the nation, waiting for the war to end.

I know all this because when I visited my parents this summer, my dad gave me my grandmother’s diary from 1943. It’s small and fits in the palm of my hand. Rather than a journal used to document one’s thoughts and feelings, this diary was used to jot down the events of the day. My grandmother did just that, writing down what she did each day the year of 1943. And what stood out to me the most is the mundane nature of life, even in the midst of war, even while waiting for news from my grandfather. Mundane things like: cooking, cleaning, and ironing, walking down to the country store for groceries (they didn’t own a car and even after they did, my grandmother never learned to drive), going to the beauty parlor, visiting with family and friends, worshipping at church, and signing up new Army recruits at the local schoolhouse.

And writing letters each day to my grandfather—many of which we still have.

As I read through the diary, through the lists of tasks and activities accomplished each day, it reminded me how much of life is filled with mundane duties and tasks. Everyday things. Errands and chores. Necessary duties of life.

Even while waiting. Even in the midst of crisis.

I tend to freeze in the face of uncertainty. I tend to push pause until I know what the future holds. I tend to zero in on the crisis and forget everything else. But life is made up of daily acts of faithfulness. Of doing what needs to be done. Of living out our callings each day. We don’t know what the future holds. We are called to glorify God this day. We are called to live for him and his glory in all that we do, even in the daily, everyday activities of life (1 Cor. 10:31, Col. 3:17).

In the spring of 1943, my grandmother wrote that she planted a garden in the yard. Growing up, my grandparents always had a garden. To this day, the best watermelon I’ve tasted came from their backyard. The act of planting a garden is one of sowing seeds of hope. The gardener does not know what will come of those seeds. She does not even know if she will be there come the harvest. She plants them anyway and each day tends to that garden. Whatever the weather or circumstances, she waters and pulls weeds and checks for harmful insects. In our own lives, we too need to till the soil of life, plant seeds, water them, and wait for God to produce the fruit. Whether we are looking for a job, laboring for restoration in a relationship, or praying for a crisis to come to an end, we need to do the daily work of life—all to the glorify God.

My grandmother’s little journal from 1943 challenged me in 2020 to remember that whatever I am waiting for, whatever the unknown future holds, whatever crisis surrounds me, I need to continue forward, doing the next thing, for the glory of God.