From the Pulpit: Faith not fear

I have encountered many people who are sharing stories of being emotionally cutoff. This happens when people decide not to be in relationship and have no contact with one another (or the bare minimum) because too much anxiety exists for them to manage. The result is to walk away and emotionally cutoff. However, unresolved anxiety does not go away, it gets stored away. Until it can’t anymore. 

Families, communities, churches, and friendship groups have all experienced division as unresolved anxiety has increased over the past couple years. The tension of factions found in politics, medicine, culture, theology and at home, have stripped us of a place of civility where our anxieties can be engaged and find resolution.

When we choose the path of emotional cutoff, we stop caring for each other in the way that is needed. We get selfish with our time and finances. We turn inward instead of reaching out and meeting the needs of others. Selfishness undermines love.

In John 13:34-35 Jesus gives us a new commandment: “Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” This is the solution to the division and tension we see all around us and to counter the unresolved anxiety that tempts us to cutoff. 

Paul writes in his letter to Timothy, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). Through love and self-discipline, we can choose to create spaces of civility where we can help each other work through our anxiety and step towards each other in friendship and love, instead of stepping up to each other in confrontation to support our faction. 

At the heart of all this is the choice to face the future in fear or with faith. Let us not be timid in our love and let us practice self-discipline in how we engage with each other. It’s time to counter fear with our faith.