Things that scare my cats:
Things that slightly scare me:
-Since I have gotten home, I have had an inexplicable desire to
listen to country music in my car. I can’t explain it, and I can’t resist it.
-The other day my Mom left me a note in which she said she
was going to “have chats” with someone. She is picking up my weird language
quirks. What will be next?
-I have transitioned from calling the girl I lived with for
the past four years “my roommate” to “my college roommate.” It is slightly
devastating that I will (presumably) never live with her again.
-I don’t have a job, or know when I’m going to have a job.
I’m in this weird in-between phase in my life and I don’t know when it’s going
to end.
-I miss my church family at Gettysburg, and I have no idea
how long it will be before I feel like I am ‘in community’ again. I know it’s
time to find a new church but the thought of actually going out and finding one?
Ahhh.
I can’t actually say that fear isn’t adaptive, because every
evolutionary psychologist in the world will freak out. Also, my cats’ tendency
to run away from dogs (and some of my cousins) could potentially increase their
lifespans. We fear things that we think might hurt us—whether that fear is
realistic or not—and our fear makes us recoil from those things. However, after
studying child anxiety for a year, living life, and reading the bible, its
clear that fear is more harmful than helpful. Being cautious and not stepping
out in front of a bus will keep you alive; being fearful of buses is just going
to make it difficult to use public transportation.
Why is fear unhelpful? Because so often, fear is a false
message that the worst is
going to happen, combined with a desire to keep that from happening even
though it is out of your control. Being afraid that I am going to be jobless
forever and have no future does not help me enjoy the gifts and talents I
have—it doesn’t make biology or psychology any more fun—nor does it help me to
find a job. Oh, it might motivate me slightly more to look for a job, but it’s
more of a pressure than a motivation, and it leaves me tired and discouraged at
the end of each day. Fear makes me wants to control things that I can’t. Ultimately,
God is the one who is sovereign, not me. He will provide; he always has in my
past, and he says in his word that he knows what is good for us and will give
us good things. This doesn’t mean I get to be lazy and take no responsibility
for my life, but it means that God will bring what I need—whether that is a
job, a grad program, or a bible-believing, vibrant church—into my life at the
right time, either through me or despite me.
You and I will fear things… fear is a natural cue when we are in
danger of missing something that is important to us, or when we are in danger of having something we have been trying to avoid. These fears can be totally rational, or maybe not. Sometimes we are afraid of fire. Sometimes we are
afraid of the smoke detector. In either case, if we hold on to fear, we live a
life of debilitating anxiety, constant vigilance, and overwhelming pressure.
And that doesn’t sound much like living to me.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life,
what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will
put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? And which
of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” -Matthew 6: 25 & 27
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