“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (our interpretations and imaginings).  This is one of Scripture’s most frequent imperatives.

“In all your ways submit to him (Thy will be done), and he will make your paths straight.” (Prv.3:5) This is the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ! How many times and in how many different ways does it need to be expressed before we embrace it with our whole heart, trusting with complete confidence that, “…all things work for good for those who love God”. (Rom.8:28) If we believe it from the bottom of our heart, what is there to fear?

Out of all the situations we face, are any of them legitimate for worry? Saint Matthew describes the Apostles on the brink of death. They cry out in terror, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” (Matt. 8:25)

Jesus had been asleep as the boat became overwhelmed by the wind and waves. His response is crucial to our understanding. Does he exclaim, “Close call, why did you wait so long?” Rather, He admonishes their fear calling out their lack of virtue. “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” (Matt. 8:26)

I repeat the above scripture for emphasis, “Lean not on your own understanding!” With our faith, hope, and love securely grounded in Jesus Christ, “the way and the truth and the life” (Jn.14:6), we will never be threatened by loss, because we possess the real treasure. We will not be disturbed or fearful because nothing can separate us from what we truly care about, God Himself.

Saint Paul confirms, “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.” (Rom.8:35,37)

By this line of her poem, “Let nothing frighten you”, Saint Teresa is encouraging us to grow in the theological virtues. Much of what we fear are mere shadows, figments of our imagination that will never be realized. They are self-created speculations stemming from some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to the present moment.

Usually it is not even the present moment that we fear, but a snap-shot of what was the present moment which has now become the past but we still cling to it. We have a propensity to avoid the present moment and dwell through memory and imagination. What could be more futile, or more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already “IS”?

In the Chinese language the character for “crisis” is the same character for “opportunity”. It is all how you perceive a situation. That perception will derive from our faith, hope, and love or lack thereof. Most “problems” cannot survive in the reality of God and the present moment. When one of life’s situations goes awry we have an opportunity to demonstrate our faith, in an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving God and our hope in his will for our future as we embrace what seems unacceptable with love, peace, and joy.

Fear is a poison that stunts and cripples our spiritual growth. The antidote is what the OCDS Provincial Statues advise, “strive to make prayer penetrate our entire existence, in order to walk in the presence of the living God, through the constant exercise of faith, hope and love….” We must learn to recognize God’s presence in the simple details of everyday life, for He is everywhere, manifest at every moment for those who desire him. He is ever whispering to our heart, “Do not fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD, your God, is with you wherever you go.” (Jos 1:9)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning expressed this reality in a most beautiful way in her poem Aurora Leigh.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Anybody can believe in God, even demons believe He exists. It is trusting in God that takes faith. Faith is based on the knowledge that the Creator of the universe, possesses a power beyond our imagining, as well as an intelligence that we cannot begin to comprehend or fathom, and a love that surpasses all knowledge (cf. Eph.3:17).

When an attachment overpowers our virtues causing them to waver, we succumb to fear. In this way fear is very much a temptation. It arises from doubts in our heart that oppose the corresponding virtue. We are tempted against faith that God exists at all, or against hope that He is powerful enough to grant our desire, or wise enough to know what is actually best for us, or tempted against charity that He is loving enough to care.

To assuage our doubts, Saint Paul reminds us that, “Ever since the creation of the world [God’s] invisible nature of eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” (Rom. 1:20)

God is all powerful, all knowing, and all good and loving. The Archangel assures us, “Nothing is impossible for God.” (cf. Lk.1:37) Our faith based on this knowledge establishes trust and our trust gives way to surrender, “Thy will be done.” (Mt.6:10)

It is essential that we recognize and have full confidence in God’s will as our greatest good. This is what Jesus taught and what we request every time we pray the “Our Father”. We must also realize the importance of the “present moment” as the expression of God’s will for us (permissive if not perfect).

It is in this context that Saint Teresa proclaimed, “To have courage for whatever comes in life — everything lies in that.” We should always interpret life according to our faith. When we suffer loss in the present moment we should proclaim the words of our holy mother, “Our greatest gain is to lose the wealth that is of such brief duration and, by comparison with eternal things, of such little worth.” She is well acquainted with human nature and quickly adds the lament, “yet we get upset about it and our gain turns to loss.”  

Our being “upset” takes many forms: unease, anxiety, tension, distress, nervousness, boredom, doubt, worry, and despair. They are all forms of fear caused by compulsively interpreting the present moment through thoughts of a dismally imagined hopeless future – worst case scenario, or you could say Godless scenario.

When we succumb to this temptation, we allow fear to dominate our consciousness pondering over and over an imagined list of miseries. The present moment where God dwells, is distorted into a fearful situation that we need to flee and reject. In this way fear separates us from God and thus is a precursor to sin. Imprisoned in an imagined Godless future we act accordingly to obtain our desires.

The anatomy of a sin begins with desire, is exacerbated through fear of non-fulfillment, and culminates in pride; My will be done.

Over and over in the scripture God entreats us not to fear. The phrases “do not be afraid”, “be not afraid”, “do not fear”, and “fear not” appear over 110 times.

If we include God in our imagined future there should be no reason for fear. There are only situations that need to be dealt with or accepted. It is vital that we always embrace the present moment with absolute faith and hope in God’s love for us.

We need to be vigilant that fear is a temptation against our virtues as Jesus’ explains, “…do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’” (Matt. 6:30)

Jesus’ instruction extends even to legitimate needs for bodily sustenance and clothing. The natural or ordinate desires that our without sin. He continues, “…your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. (Matt. 6:30-33)

Do we believe this?

All of us, to one degree or another, are spiritually broken, “If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.” (1Jn.1:8-9)

When we use our fears to identify and acknowledge our attachments and weaknesses, then God cleanses the residual “stains” of “every wrong doing” on our spiritual faculties; of understanding, memory, and will that we discussed above.

The theological virtues heal and purify our spiritual faculties through the active dark night of spirit. They involve our own efforts supported by God’s grace. The spiritual faculty of human understanding, the assumptions and interpretations we derive, are purified by supernatural faith. Human memory, the storage of those perceptions, is purified by supernatural hope. And the human will which is our response to those perceptions is purified by supernatural charity.

An example will help to illustrate this idea. Imagine a beautiful spring morning, the sun is shining, the sky is blue as you drive down a street lined with majestic oak trees. You notice every tree as you pass under and are taken by the diversity. Each one is a little different – its shape or color or foliage, and each adds to the beauty of the overall tapestry. In awe of the splendor of the moment you effusively praise God as it unfolds before you.

This is the way we are meant to journey through life; acknowledging the grandeur of each moment and praising the glory of God.

Then something happens.

Out of the corner of your eye your attention is drawn to a car going the opposite direction. You look just as it has passed by and quickly notice from the back that it resembles your husband’s car. You were not able to make out the driver, but you know that the passenger was a woman.

Immediately, you begin to cling to that one moment, replaying it over and over in your head. Could that have been his car – isn’t he supposed to be at work? Why would he be with another woman? Fear begins to take over, “Is he cheating on me?” And anger, “I do so much for him and he is never grateful!”

Obviously, this is a silly exaggerated example, but let’s use it to examine what happened to the beautiful day and our communion with God. The beautiful day is still there and God is still with us, but we are no longer present. We have become blinded, clinging to a memory we created, trapped in the past by shackles forged from our own ego.

How would greater faith have changed our interpretation of this event? What really happened? The event itself was harmless and should not have sustained our attention. We saw the back of a car driving down a street. We could have chosen to stop following the distraction and returned our mind and heart to God. Everything beyond that point is our embellished interpretation of the event, which not only violates our faith in God, but also violates faith in our spouse.

We defy the virtue of hope when we refuse to let go of the event and begin making the worst assumptions and jumping to the worst conclusions. Our response undermines the virtue of charity when we take the event personally making it about ourselves. “…cheating on me”, “…I do so much for him”, “he is never grateful (to me)”.

Whenever we take something personally we are serving our ego not God. The same is true when we cling to the past or some imagined future, when we make uncharitable assumptions, judgements, and conclusions, and when we attempt to control others. These actions all deny God and build up our ego.

Let nothing frighten you:

When we are frightened it is all too often due to a defect or weakness in our possession and practice of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Provincial Statute I.2 expresses that, “Secular Carmelites are called to strive to make prayer penetrate their entire existence, in order to walk in the presence of the living God [cf. 1K 17:1], through the constant exercise of faith, hope and love….”

The theological virtues are dispositions infused by God into the souls of the faithful adapting them to participate in the divine nature. (2 Pet 1:4) These virtues nourish and enhance the human soul enabling it to embrace a loving relationship with the Holy Trinity as dear children and capable of inheriting eternal life. (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church #1812 – #1813)

Scripture confirms, “We are in fact God’s offspring.” (Acts 2:39) The divine essence that is within Jesus is also in us through Baptism, “For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily, and you share in this fullness in him.” (Col 2:9-10).

Saint Paul explains, “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Rom 8:14-16) Do we hear that cry, “Father!”, within our own heart? Or is it muted by the anguish of worldly fears?

The great commandment is proof that God’s desire is to be loved. He wants true love, authentic love, the type of “perfect love” that casts out all fear. “There is no fear in love …one who fears is not yet perfect in love.” (1Jn.4:18) The same is true of the theological virtues of faith and hope. There is no fear in the fullness of faith or in the fullness of hope.

When people and situations frighten us, they indicate wanting and misdirection of our virtues. Instead of our faith, hope, and love being committed entirely to God, they are invested in earthly things. Money in the bank is a good example. Doesn’t it feel good to have money in our savings account? It can make us feel safe and secure against the unexpected? It may be prudent to have a savings account, but how do we feel when the unexpected happens and the money is taken away?

If we feel vulnerable and insecure then there has been a shift in our heart’s desire from Thy will be done to My will be done. Two considerations we should know about fear is it is always based on an imagined future and is concerned with some perceived loss or not realizing a desired expectation (an attachment).

As we examine what frightens us we recognize that the threat is based upon a perceived separation or loss from people or things that we inordinately made the objects of our faith, hope, and love, rather than God.

In this way, just like with attachments, being aware of our fears can help identify to what degree we are children of God or children of the world. God is Spirit. His children are made in His image and will resemble His nature of Love.

Do we recognize our self as Spirit and know, “it is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD?” (Deut. 8:3)

Or, do our fears betray hearts longing for what the world has to offer, “…sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life?” (1Jn.2:17)