Fear and Love (Markus Linecker)
Fear and Love
In my second life I am a filmmaker. For the past 30 years, I have either been studying films, planning films, producing films, or stuck in my editing bay for hours and days editing them. In the midst of all that, I made a movie once that I am justifiably proud of, titled Fear, Love, and Agoraphobia. Do any of those concepts strike a chord? I think the elements of this title truly fit our current situation.
We are experiencing fear: fear of sickness, fear of a collapsing economy, and now fear of isolation. In my movie, the main character was agoraphobic which means he was deathly terrified of going outside. As a result, he was trapped in his mom’s house and it became his whole world. Honestly, I felt like that yesterday. I felt my whole world becoming so small, bounded by the walls of my house and my back yard. I felt that if I went outside, the bigger world would harm me. I could truly relate to the character we wrote for our movie. Fear likes to overtake us; it likes to control us and wants to be in charge of our lives. The enemy uses fear. He uses it to shut us down, to make us paralyzed, to deceive us. He wants to separate us from GOD’s LOVE.
Don’t get me wrong, it is not wrong to feel fear. Sometimes fear protects us; however, if it takes over our lives we stop trusting God. God’s love is the thing that keeps me going. I learned through this isolation (I am naturally an extrovert) how much I cherish what he gives me inside and outside my home. I look at my wife and my kids and I am thankful that he lets me have this special time with them. I look at a picture of my friends and me and it makes me miss hanging out with them (I work with them and usually see them every day). But I am thankful that I have these brothers and I am thankful that God has surrounded me with them. I realized how special all this is.
These are challenging times and we don’t really know where we will end up, but one element of being a Christian is the excitement of seeing God working and providing. Throughout time He has always taken care of His people and come through. Am I scared? YES, but I also know He loves us and this love is bigger that my anxiety. I cannot control others or much of our circumstances, but I can control how I react to it. I have to repeatedly remind myself that God is in control and it is my job to react accordingly to Him so His plan will be fulfilled. God says in the Bible 365 times, “DO NOT FEAR!” That is literally like one time for every day of the year. It is obviously really important to Him to tell us that He will be with us and that we should trust Him over all other things, including our circumstances. Especially our circumstances. This alone helps me to conquer my fear and face whatever is coming.
I have no idea how long this situation will last. I have no idea how our world will look after this, and I will continue to struggle with the agoraphobic instincts that come with uncertainty. But I know that God will always be the same: His love will never change, regardless of the situation we are in. With him Fear turns to Love, and His love is everlasting. It is the one thing you CAN count on.
In my second life I am a filmmaker. For the past 30 years, I have either been studying films, planning films, producing films, or stuck in my editing bay for hours and days editing them. In the midst of all that, I made a movie once that I am justifiably proud of, titled Fear, Love, and Agoraphobia. Do any of those concepts strike a chord? I think the elements of this title truly fit our current situation.
We are experiencing fear: fear of sickness, fear of a collapsing economy, and now fear of isolation. In my movie, the main character was agoraphobic which means he was deathly terrified of going outside. As a result, he was trapped in his mom’s house and it became his whole world. Honestly, I felt like that yesterday. I felt my whole world becoming so small, bounded by the walls of my house and my back yard. I felt that if I went outside, the bigger world would harm me. I could truly relate to the character we wrote for our movie. Fear likes to overtake us; it likes to control us and wants to be in charge of our lives. The enemy uses fear. He uses it to shut us down, to make us paralyzed, to deceive us. He wants to separate us from GOD’s LOVE.
Don’t get me wrong, it is not wrong to feel fear. Sometimes fear protects us; however, if it takes over our lives we stop trusting God. God’s love is the thing that keeps me going. I learned through this isolation (I am naturally an extrovert) how much I cherish what he gives me inside and outside my home. I look at my wife and my kids and I am thankful that he lets me have this special time with them. I look at a picture of my friends and me and it makes me miss hanging out with them (I work with them and usually see them every day). But I am thankful that I have these brothers and I am thankful that God has surrounded me with them. I realized how special all this is.
These are challenging times and we don’t really know where we will end up, but one element of being a Christian is the excitement of seeing God working and providing. Throughout time He has always taken care of His people and come through. Am I scared? YES, but I also know He loves us and this love is bigger that my anxiety. I cannot control others or much of our circumstances, but I can control how I react to it. I have to repeatedly remind myself that God is in control and it is my job to react accordingly to Him so His plan will be fulfilled. God says in the Bible 365 times, “DO NOT FEAR!” That is literally like one time for every day of the year. It is obviously really important to Him to tell us that He will be with us and that we should trust Him over all other things, including our circumstances. Especially our circumstances. This alone helps me to conquer my fear and face whatever is coming.
I have no idea how long this situation will last. I have no idea how our world will look after this, and I will continue to struggle with the agoraphobic instincts that come with uncertainty. But I know that God will always be the same: His love will never change, regardless of the situation we are in. With him Fear turns to Love, and His love is everlasting. It is the one thing you CAN count on.