Not Banishing Our Anxiety But Honoring It

Krispin Mayfield is a therapist who does work around understanding how we form healthy attachments to others and to God. His reflections will be our devotional this morning:

Don’t be afraid is one of the most abused phrases from the Bible. God says, “Do not be afraid,” at least fifty times in scripture. Jesus himself says, “Do not worry,” and Paul clearly says, “Do not be anxious about anything.”

But without a vision of an emotionally engaged God, we read these statements as a cold, strict ban on emotion rather than words of reassurance and an invitation to safety. Some Christian leaders have presented it like “don’t YOU DARE be afraid” in a mean voice.

But I believe these words aren’t all that different from the way I comfort my son when he’s scared. We regularly walk around our neighborhood, and when a dog barks from behind the fence, I give his hand an extra squeeze and say, “Don’t worry; you’re okay.”

I’m not banishing his emotion, I’m responding to it. I’m comforting him because I can see, in some sense, he has a very, very real reason to be worried. 

Our Divine Parent does the same. What might it mean if every time you heard, “Do not be afraid,” or “Do not worry,” it was a sign that God sees your fear and worry with a desire to respond with comfort? What if this command is a response rather than a restriction?