There is a legend of a peasant who, driving into a city in Europe, was hailed by an aged woman who asked him to take her up and drive her into the town with him. Looking at her as they drove along, the peasant became alarmed and asked who she was. She told him that she was the plague, cholera.
The peasant then ordered her out of his cart, but she assured him that in the city she would kill only 10 persons. As proof of her pledge she handed him a dagger and told him that if she slew more than 10, he was to take the dagger and slay her. After they reached the city, more than 100 perished with the plague.
The angry peasant, meeting the woman on the street, drew his dagger and was about to slay her. But she lifted her hand and told him that she had kept her word.
"I killed only 10. Fear killed the rest."
Fear continues to take its heavy toll. Physicians tell us that a large percentage of the illnesses of people are not organic, but are triggered by fear. People fear failure, they fear loss of love, they fear other people, they fear the future, they fear death.
What is the remedy? The psalmist tells us, "I sought the Lord."
This suggests prayer, meditation, study. It suggests seeking to learn about God. It suggests concern about the things of God. The result? The psalmist does not say that he was delivered from pain, misfortune, or the fear of these things. In the 23rd Psalm we read, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil," we are not assured of deliverance from the "valley of the shadow," but from fear.
It would be the height of folly to suggest that there is no reason for fear in the present world. Danger lurks everywhere, but the Christian rests secure in his confidence in the eternal purpose of God. He believes in the love of God and eventual triumph of right. Thus fear melts away in the context of knowledge and faith.
- Al Tilstra is pastor of Silver Springs and Yerington Seventh-day Adventist churches and is a member of the Carson City Christian Ministerial Fellowship.