Helping People Be Less Afraid

by | Nov 3, 2020 | Inspiration

One of the greatest comedians of all time was Robin Williams, who sadly took his own life in 2014. A new documentary on his life called Robin’s Wish addresses the neurodegenerative disease which impacted his suicide. His autopsy revealed that he had Lewy Body Dementia (LBD). LBD is similar to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s but progresses more quickly, leading to rapid loss of motor and cognitive skills. Two years before he took his life at age 63, Williams’ wife asked him what he hoped his legacy would be. Immediately he replied, “I want to help people be less afraid.” This amazing comedian, known for generating great laughter, had battled addictions and depression throughout his adult life and was plagued by fear.1

Whether our lives are plagued by fear or are just fearful from time to time, common sense says that each of us would like to be less afraid, if not eliminate it altogether. But how do we achieve that? A key step in accomplishing that is to resist the seduction regarding fear, and its frequent running mate worry, that both are inevitable emotional responses to difficult and trying life circumstances. To fight fear and worry we must first realize they are optional emotional responses, with each coming down to a personal choice.

How can I be so sure that fear and worry are optional – and thus a personal choice? My confidence arises from the fact that in His word, the Bible, God commands us to refrain from both. For example, we find these words in Isaiah 41:10, “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am Your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Understand this important truth about fear and worry. If fear and worry are inevitable, God would not have commanded us not to do them. God would never command anything that is impossible to do.

So the logical question becomes, what must we do to make fear and worry optional? We fight fear and worry with faith by making sure we feed our faith and not our fears and worries. But faith in what? Part of the answer is found in the Bible verse above. We fight fear and worry by choosing to believe the five promises God makes to His followers in that verse.

  1. “I [God] am with you….” – We fight fear and worry by choosing to live in light of God’s promise to be present with us at all times and in all places.
  2. “I am your God….” We fight fear and worry by choosing to live in light of God’s declaration the He – the One who created the universe, the One who sovereignly oversees the day to day functioning of it, and the One who is perfectly loving, kind, good, wise, gracious, merciful, and holy – He wants to be our personal God.
  3. “I [God] will strengthen you….” We fight fear and worry by choosing to live in light of God’s promise to make us strong where we are weak.
  4. “I [God] will help you….” We fight fear and worry by choosing to live in light of God’s promise to come alongside us and fill in the gaps of our limitations of strength, wisdom, discernment, understanding, patience, and longsuffering in navigating the whitewater of life.
  5. “I [God] will uphold you by my righteous right hand.” In the Bible, the right hand is a symbol of power. We fight fear and worry by choosing to live in light of God’s ability to uphold us and to keep us from falling during times when life tries to overwhelm us.

One man who understood and lived by the truths of Isaiah 41:10 was a South African named Fredie Blom. When he turned 114 in 2018, he was considered the world’s oldest man. When someone asked him his secret to longevity, at first he shrugged. But then he said, “There’s only one thing; it’s God. He’s got all the power…He holds me.”2

That’s truth too late for Robin Williams, but thankfully, not for us.

1USA Today, 9/3/20, 7B
2Our Daily Bread, September-November 2020, October 13