Your Faith Will Get You Through by Rev. Lane Williams
From a broad prospective of our human history we like being scared. In the past we liked watching scary things like public executions and gladiator events, and now it’s boxing, wrestling, professional football, hockey, video games, and violence on TV and movies. Our media vies for the scariest headliners to drive up the public’s attention. Being scared brings up the ratings. As a people we are adrenaline junkies.
There’s a great horror film, The Fly, about a brilliant but eccentric scientist who is experimenting with teleportation. Naturally the experiments begin to go wrong, and before long he starts turning into a huge and scary insect. When he pleads with one of the characters not to be afraid, the reporter working on the story contradicts him with what has now become a classic line: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
In the movie this is humorous; today it well describes the contemporary cultural mood. Constantly we are told to be afraid, to be very afraid. You could even say that we are now afraid of not being afraid. “Be very afraid!” has become the motto of the political parties – what will happen if one or the other is in control of the government. Now there are things to be concerned about, very concerned about, but when you compare our lives with our ancestors, we are safer than we have ever been. When we look at the stories of floods, famine, slavery, plagues, war and exile in the Bible, life was “poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” And yet what is the refrain that you hear again and again throughout the Bible? “Do not be afraid.” In the midst of these fears and dangers, “Be still and know that I am there. I am with you,” says the Lord, “I am with you!”
In the midst of our fear we are to draw upon our faith that God is ever present; we are not alone. For as our fear tightens us up, we close down, we retreat and attempt to protect ourselves, or flee from the danger – the fight or flight instinct. In our fear, we shut ourselves off from any creative solutions. We separate ourselves from the Allness, the Oneness where we know that there is only good and we are divinely protected. BUT Faith is fearless, because faith trusts in God, the ever-present source of all that is and will be. That is the gift and privilege of being alive today, to be consciously awake and aware. And no one and no thing can take that away from us. How can I be afraid when I am the beloved expression of a loving Creator?
Faith is our ability to commit ourselves totally to spiritual truth. It empowers us to see the good even in appearances to the contrary. It is the power to move unseen good into manifestation. Charles Fillmore said faith is “the perceiving power of the mind linked with the power to shape substance.” This definition explains how faith works to manifest the ideas we are focused upon. From the underlying field of all possibility, the substance from which all is manifest, as we focus, as we tap into this power of faith, we bring forth that which we desire. That is how it works.
There is a tale of a visiting monk, a referred spiritual teacher, who was being guided to the temple by two young initiates. As they approached the gate to the temple, the huge snarling dog that guarded the gate broke its chain and came rushing toward the monk and his guides. In fear, the young men fled from the dog. But what did the monk do? He ran toward the mad dog and the dog turned and fled from him.
So it is for us. When we calmly turn toward those things that scare us most and face them awake and aware, we gather the strength and the resources to solve them. For our minds are always connected to that creative ability to bring forth the perfect solution, but our fear closes us off from Source. When we relax in even the scariest situations and breathe in calmness, we open ourselves to the power of Divine Wisdom. When we shine our light, this Divine Light into the darkness, we see the truth of what lies before us and from this place we can bring forth perfect solutions. And so it is and so it is.
