Fear - 2 Timothy 1:6-7

1:6-7 - Timothy has a lifetime of experience being faithful and religious. But even when that is the case, spiritual vigilance isn’t always a guaranteed. I’ve always wondered why they say your spirit needs to be fed daily just like your body. But the more I think about it, how many times in a day do we have even a slight shift in mood? I know that for me it’s like every couple of hours. I can go from happy to irritated in a matter of minutes, and then what? Then it becomes a fight within myself to decide what I’m going to do from there and let me tell you that I do some serious self-reflection and talking to Jesus when that time comes. I ask myself probably twice and hour “what would Jesus do?” and I try to do that thing, but so much of the time it’s really hard to do the thing that I know Jesus would do. And if doing the right thing is so difficult even trying to pray and read the scriptures every day then just imagine how hard it would be for me if I didn’t do those things. In fact, I know what it would be like because I’ve lived that life for many many years. So, even though Timothy has a lifetime of spirituality and has been a faithful companion to Paul for years and now leads a newly established branch, he still needs to be reminded by Paul, “I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.” The words “stir up” is cross-referenced with the terms “rekindle, revive. TG priesthood, magnifying callings within.” The words “rekindle” and “revive” implies the bringing back of something that was dead or dormant and we have to ask ourselves, how does this man who had lived decades of spiritual strength have dormant spiritual “gifts of God”? There’s always room for improvement for all of us, maybe Paul is encouraging Timothy to try to take his spirituality to the next level by asking Jesus to help him know what that step is. The IM quotes David A. Bednar as teaching, “These four words- ‘Receive the Holy Ghost’- are not a passive pronouncement; rather, they constitute a priesthood injunction- an authoritative admonition to act and not simply to be acted upon. The Holy Ghost does not become operative in our lives merely because hands are placed upon our heads and those four important words are spoken. As we receive this ordinance, each of us accepts a sacred and ongoing responsibility to desire, to seek, to work, and to so live that we indeed ‘receive the Holy Ghost’ and its attendant spiritual gifts.” Just like our physical hunger and fatigue waxes and wains on a daily basis, so also does our spiritual hunger and fatigue, and we must care for our spirit with the same vigor and investment as our physical bodies. Another aspect might be that Paul is telling Timothy “I set you apart for this calling, learn to use that power to magnify your calling.” We can do this too, not only in seeking to take our personal spirituality to the next level, but also when we are set apart for specific callings, we are guaranteed the spiritual help and guidance to not only fulfill our callings, but to magnify them. Maybe another reason we are encouraged to feed our spirit daily is because of the volatility of this life physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If we think about all the different sensations that we encounter each day, we can see the variety and pendulum of this life. Paul specifically references “fear” counseling “for God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Fear is such an interesting concept because of the teaching that “fear is the opposite of faith.” I heard that in sacrament meeting once, so I’m not sure how much of a staple it is, but it makes sense. I think about the Savior who had perfect faith, so I would imagine that he never experienced fear in his life leading up to the atonement. I think about this often because if this is the case, then his first time experiencing fear would be while he suffered for the sins and mortality of all mankind during the atonement. I wonder what it was like for him, how foreign and completely debilitating it was as he experienced the horror felt by so many of the rest of us for the first time. If I remember correctly, when we were studying the atonement, when it came to the great drops of blood dripping like sweat, we learned that it is a medical condition cause by an acute elevation of heart rate and blood pressure brought about by sudden, intense fear. It would make sense that if the Savior had never experienced fear before, having all the fear humanity has ever experienced hit you full force over a short period of time would have had serious physical effects. I guess the question is, why didn’t Jesus experience fear during his mortal life before the atonement? What are people normally afraid of? Death is an obvious answer here, but why did Jesus not fear death? He knew that it wasn’t his time yet. I don’t know if that’s something attainable for the rest of us, to know when our time to die is, but I think we shouldn’t focus on that, we never hear from the pulpit “try to get God to tell you when your time to die is.” It’s not really fair for the rest of us who don’t know when our time to die is to be held liable for a fear of death just because Jesus didn’t fear death because he knew his timeline. But we can stave off a fear of death by having faith that if we try our best to be righteous, no matter our time or manner of death, it is God’s will. If we trust God to protect us, then we have to accept that if he doesn’t, then it is because it’s his will not to. I’m not afraid of death, sometimes it actually sounds like a nice escape. I think about it a lot actually, the differences in this world and the next. I think it was Brigham Young who said, “the more I learn about the next life, the more faith it takes to keep me in this one.” I’m not at that point, and I’m not suicidal or anything like that, but I do spend quite a bit of time thinking about death and the next life and the deaths of people throughout human history. Another thing people can be afraid of is physical suffering, whether it be inflicted by others or just by nature, such as disease or the elements. I think about the Savior’s life in between the time of his teaching at the temple at age 12 and the start of his ministry at age 30. We know that Joseph almost certainly died during that time, and we also know that Jesus only used his godly powers when instructed to do so for the benefit of others. All this means that as the oldest brother of so many other siblings, the role of “man of the house” must have fallen on him and depending on his age when Joseph passed, he would have certainly become the primary breadwinner of the family. There must have been a transition, or even a large stretch of time from when Jesus built up the family business on his own or when one of his brothers could have been trained up to take Joseph’s place in the business. All this is to say that I’m confident that when Joseph died, there was a period of time when the little family suffered from hunger and uncertainty and heartbreak. Jesus could have used his godly ability to produce extra food for the hungry kids, but I don’t think that he did. The rest of us can’t use that as a reliable food source, so I don’t think he was allowed to do that either. I think he probably went to bed hungry many nights himself because he had given his food to his younger siblings. Wasn’t he afraid during that time that they would never get back on their feet? That they would continue to suffer? Let’s look at why he wouldn’t have been afraid, despite physical suffering. He had faith that Joseph’s death was God’s will and he knew that God would always have a plan for them. But what if that plan meant that they would starve to death? It’s really easy to look at “God’s plan” when we think the outcome is going to be positive, but so often that outcome is negative, is it still God’s plan then? That’s a tough thing to reconcile because surely, we can’t say that being raped is “God’s plan” because any God that wants that to happen is not a being that I can ever put any trust in. God absolutely does not want any violence or suffering to come to anyone, he doesn’t “plan” for that to happen, but he knows that it will in each individual instance. This is what’s God’s plan, that all the horrible, terrible things that happen in this life will be compensated 100-fold in the next. Maybe that’s what Jesus placed his faith in, that any suffering he or his family endured would be compensated for. This is a principle that I absolutely believe in and love but can’t understand how it’s going to be executed, which is frustrating. The list goes on and on considering the ways that we experience fear that Jesus doesn’t, and how and why. But I think the overarching principle is that Jesus’ ability to overcome fear wasn’t because of some special attribute that was unique to him, but something that each and every one of us is able to gain for ourselves. Maybe that is one of those “gifts of God” that Paul was talking about. Paul counters the “spirit of fear” with the spirit of “power” “love” and “of a sound mind.” In the context of Timothy, maybe Paul is referencing any reticence he might be experiencing when it comes to preaching the gospel. In this instance, Paul might be saying, “don’t be afraid to preach the gospel because of persecution because God has given us a spirit of power, power to overcome objections, power to educate and power to have the Spirit with us. Also if we say “God hath not given us a spirit of fear but of power” there’s a transformative and empowering feeling that comes with that statement. When you think about how it feels to be afraid, it makes you feel small, withdrawn, and helpless. We fear things that we think will negatively impact us in some way that we have no ability to stop. But the word “power” on the other hand, is confidence, ability, safety. It conveys empowerment, the ability to handle whatever comes in a way that will work out to your benefit. Another way we can look at that phrase is “God didn’t give us a spirit of helplessness, but of ability.” That ability can include being able to be happy regardless of whatever is happening, the ability to have inner peace when things are crazy, and the ability to know the will of God when it’s appropriate. But on the other hand, many times, our circumstances are such that bad things still happen, even when we are “empowered.” Then we can rely on our ability to have faith in the Savior and his promise of compensation. Paul uses another attribute following “power” and putting it all together, it says “God hath not given us a spirit of fear… but of love.” The opposite of love is “hate” and even though logically it might not make sense, a lot of times, fear is the driving force between hate. We hate people and things that we think are going to take something away from us, or because we are wildly insecure. So how does love overcome fear? We don’t have to fear others when we know can see them as siblings in God’s family. They can still hurt and enslave us, but they are just doing what they think is best at the time, and again, we can trust that we will be compensated for all suffering. We can over come fear through our sympathy and desire for others to be happy. We can overcome fear by our love of God and his goodness and through our faith in his love for us. So much of overcoming fear is taking our feelings towards whatever is negative around us and moving it to an eternal perspective. That’s a difficult concept, and really abstract but I’m going to think about it some more and see what I can come up with.