overcoming our fears

There are many encouraging statements we hear when it comes to overcoming our fears: “Face your fears,” “Don’t let fear hold you back.” Of course the most famous one said by Roosevelt, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  All these statements want to stress the same point – fear limits who we are. It limits our experiences, our growth and capabilities.  These fears can range from a fear of heights or flying, to a fear of public-speaking or fears that stem from social anxiety.  Sometimes, we can drown ourselves so much in our fears that it actually starts harming our physical health – we have trouble sleeping and it weakens our immune system. 
 
Not only our physical health, but fear can certainly have harmful effects to our spiritual lives.  The more we give in to fear, the less we trust God.  Fear can make us feel like God is distant and far away from us, and our thoughts and actions as a result of our fear can make it look like we don’t actually believe in God or that He cares about us.  
 
This theme is at the heart of our readings today.  We see in a very dramatic way how fear can prevent us from living our lives in the way that God has called us to, how fear can prevent us from knowing the true freedom and peace that can only come from God. In our first reading we have the prophet Elijah, and he climbs the mountain, Horeb, and goes into a cave. The reason why he did this is because he was afraid. The chapters before this passage, Elijah’s been preaching a message of repentance and conversion to the Israelites urging them to turn away from false idols and return to worshipping the true God. But the Queen, Queen Jezebel, despised what he was doing, and being filled with so much hatred for him, she was determined to have Elijah killed.
 
And so, it says in chapter 19, verse 3, “Elijah was afraid and fled for his life.”  He abandoned what God wanted him to do because he was driven by his fear.  He was so afraid that he escapes to the mountain to hide.  This passage actually depicts well the common response that we all have when it comes to fears, and it’s the fight or flight response.  Clearly, Elijah has a flight response from his fear by hiding in the mountain, but the next part can be seen as how he wished his fight response would’ve looked like.  
 
God tells him to go outside the mountain because he will see again God’s presence, but it wasn’t in the storm, or the earthquake, or the fire, but in a tiny whispering sound.  Maybe Elijah, again because of his fear, wanted God to be in those strong fearful events as a way to show how God is fighting for Elijah, but God wasn’t in those strong fearful events.  
 
What brought Elijah back to his senses was that recognition of God in that tiny whispering sound.  Once he saw the true God again, rather than how he wanted God to be as a result of his fear, he recaptured his confidence and remembered what really gave him purpose and life. That encounter with God brought him back to what he was all about.  
 
And then we have this incredible Gospel.  Peter and the other disciples are told by Jesus to get into a boat and to meet him on the other side of the sea, and the Gospel says that during the fourth watch of the night, which would’ve been around 3:00 in the morning, the darkest hours of the night, there was a major storm and their boat was being tossed around.  Certainly there was a lot of fear among the disciples, but Jesus comes to them walking on the water.  “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid,” he says, and he invites Peter to come to him.  Then, the best part of the Gospel, it says, “Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.  But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” 
 
Peter actually walked on water. For that brief moment he wasn’t afraid and did what was impossible, as long as Peter kept his eyes fixed on Jesus, but when he looked away, when he saw again how strong the storm was and the waves splashing on his feet, he became afraid, and began to sink.  While it won’t be as dramatic for us like the Gospel, the lesson is still the same – keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.  Anything is possible when we can do that, but when we take our eyes off of Jesus, how quickly we can sink.  
 
We believe in God, a God who loves us and will never abandon us, a God who knows our fears and will come to us, maybe not in the ways that we expect like Elijah, but he will come to us to help us rise above those storms in our lives that can stir up so much fear and anxiety.  There are many statements that encourage us to overcome our fears, but there is none better than what Jesus said to his disciples, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”  Ask God for the grace to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and to be attentive to his voice, so that we can always have that confidence and the peace that can only come from God to help us overcome those fears in our lives.