Fear 02: The Examination Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily: Hey guys, Emily here! Welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood. We are so excited for you to hear episode two of the fear mini-series. Before we jump into today's show, we wanted to share with you some freebies that go along with the series. One that I want to tell you about today is a devotional I wrote just for you guys called Fear Him More.
As we were talking about this topic, Laura and I realized that what we all really need is to go to Scripture. We need to understand who God is and what he says about fearing him and how to deal with our fears, worries, and anxieties in life. The devotional includes five days of short Bible readings, and then some thoughts to help you as you process what the word says and meditate on it. There are also guided prayers that you can go through, along with some questions. We hope that it really serves you alongside this series to get into the word of God, which is the primary place we all need to go for hope and help.
Along with the Fear Him More devotional, you can also get a downloadable tool for kids. It's a craft called the Wheel of Truth, and there’s all kinds of promises from God that you can share with your kids. We also compiled a playlist for you guys on Spotify, something you can listen to when you're processing through fears and anxieties. Head over to risenmotherhood.com/fear, to get all of the resources I just mentioned. Okay, let's get to the show.
Emily: Welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood. I'm Emily, here with my sister-in-law, Laura.
Laura: Hey, guys.
Emily: We have another episode in our mini-series on the topic of fear. Real quick before you listen, if you have not listened to last week's episode, we would encourage you to listen to this whole series chronologically, if you can. While they are definitely standalone episodes, and we hope that you'll get some good truth out of each one that you listen to, we also intend this to be set in the context of a whole series where we're examining the topic from a lot of different angles.
Laura: We're talking about fear, like Emily said, and I think what's funny is, you guys have probably heard people say, "Oh, ‘fear not’ is in the Bible 365 times." I was like, "Hey, is that true? I'm going to look that up." I think it depends on how you count it and what version you're reading, but yes, indeed, fear is talked about a ton in the Bible. Clearly, we can know God knew that we'd be afraid, and he knew we would need some counsel on it.
Emily: It's interesting. I just started re-reading through the Bible about a month ago and I'm using a Post-it Note as a bookmark and I started writing down verses that have to do with fear, because I'm thinking, "Oh, maybe we'd like to talk about this one or this one." My whole Post-it Note is already full.
Laura: Oh, I believe that.
Emily: I am already a month in, so there's definitely at least 365 references to it.
Laura: Yes, I think there are so many examples of dealing with fear if you look in Scripture. You're probably hitting tons of them, Emily, as you read the Bible through. There are tons of examples of women who faced fear in Scripture, some of them handled it really, really well, and some of them didn't. There are a lot of really good ones that we want to talk about for a second.
Emily: Especially going back to the Old Testament, we'll talk a little bit about Eve and her journey out of Eden. But also, I love the story from Exodus of the Hebrew midwives fearing God more than they feared Pharaoh, and obeying him even though what they were doing was technically against his decree. God worked through that and then used it as an incredibly powerful way to redeem and bless his people because they’re willing to stand up and obey the Lord.
Laura: How about Moses's mama sending him down in a basket. Think about how much fear you would have of being like, "He might die. He's this cute little baby. I'm going to put him in this reed basket. I'm going to send him down the Nile." Just put yourself in that mom's shoes.
Emily: It's just gut-wrenching.
Laura: Yes, it's gut-wrenching. That's right. What a gift that the Lord gave her a few more years with him when the pharaoh's daughter found him. What was Moses's sister's name?
Emily: Miriam.
Laura: Miriam went and found a nurse like “ta-dah!” I love that. I just thought that was neat.
Emily: Then when you move into wisdom literature, like Proverbs 31, and you start reading that one, you realize there's such beautiful imagery about how she isn’t afraid. She clothes her household, she's working hard and she's laughing at the future. We know enough about the people in Scripture to know they did not have easy, perfect lives. They had very real fears, challenges and things that were threatening their livelihood just like we experience today. This was not a woman in a perfect situation, and yet we see her trusting the Lord and working hard in the midst of that.
Laura: I always love the story of Esther going to the King, and how she knew, "Hey, I might die. If he doesn't send that scepter down and say that it's cool that I approach him at the throne, I could lose my life." She asked everybody to pray for her. It's so neat to see her fearlessness surrounding saving her people. Even Deborah going into battle with Barak. Her response was something like, "You should be able to do this yourself, but fine. I'll go with you." How scary to go into battle.
Emily: We just got done celebrating Christmas a while back, but it never gets old reading about Mary's response to the angel. Over and over again, angels appeared to people in the Bible.
Laura: They're scary, They are not little cherubs.
Emily: They're terrifying. The first thing they have to say is, "Don't be afraid."
Laura: I know. I was telling my kids that. I'm homeschooling this year, and we were talking about art and how cherubs and angels were displayed. They kept asking, "Why is it a naked baby?" I was like, "I have no idea. Legit, I don't know, but that is not what an angel looks like, kiddos." I showed them some pictures of artist renderings on Google images. They were like, "That's a lot scarier." I'm like, "I know."
Emily: I know. It's amazing to read about Mary’s testimony and the way she worships the Lord and obeys Him in the midst of a pregnancy out of wedlock. That is incredibly difficult to explain, and it comes with a lot of shame and all kinds of stuff. Yet she followed the Lord faithfully. These are the kind of women that we want to emulate. We want to follow them as they follow the Lord in the midst of terrifying circumstances.
Laura: I just look at their courage and think, "Man, how can I get just a little tiny bit of that?" Of course we're going to talk about this a ton because this is the gospel, but you think about Christ and the fear that he faced in the cross. He was ultimately setting the example for us, of course, but also what a gift that we have the Holy Spirit in us to help us face our fears the way Christ did and the way these women did, and just be able to have help, because we're not able to do it on our own.
Emily: Amen. Today as Laura just mentioned, we're going to be talking through the gospel. If you are just joining us for the first time at Risen Motherhood, one of the mnemonic devices that we really like to use is creation, fall, redemption, consummation.
As you listen along, we think you will catch what those words mean, but they are just little checkpoints to grab on to that help us think through the whole counsel of God, which means just the whole Bible, all the stories and the way that they fit together. When we take a topic and we go through creation, fall, redemption, consummation, we follow it through the Bible and see what each aspect of the gospel has to say about it. It helps us get a bigger picture.
Laura: If you've ever seen our logo, it is four squares. Lots of people like to ask us what that is. Those four squares that are set in a diamond shape, they represent the four parts of the Gospels. You can look to that and also have a fun fact.
Emily: That is a fun fact. [laughter]
Laura: Creation. That's where we're going to start with the gospel. Guys, as I was thinking through this, and I think, Emily, you probably feel the same, my mind was being blown with all the ways that I thought of what fear might have looked like or might not have looked like in creation. We know that Adam and Eve did not face fear like we know it today. At least while they were still in the garden, they didn't have the same concept as we do for fear.
Emily: It is really, really interesting to think about. All they had to do was just fear the Lord, trusting him, believing that he'd given them all that they needed. He was providing for their very life. They didn't have to fear death, they didn't have to fear getting hurt, they didn't have to fear their relationship unraveling. This is just pure speculation, but this is how my brain works as I'm processing through this. Even when Eve was approached by the serpent, if she hadn't been tempted in that overt way before, would she have even really thought through the implications of what could happen if she listened to the lies of Satan? Then on the other hand it's interesting to think about, well, regardless of whether she understood the implications of what might've happened, she still should have feared the Lord and obeyed him no matter what. There were so many different things I was processing through with that.
Laura: I think that's where this question of, “Was it that she was super afraid or was it that she wasn't afraid enough?” comes into play.
We have been talking about that a lot over the course of this series. I think one of the things that we were discussing was this idea of the serpent talking to her. I don't know, if an animal started talking to me I'd be a little bit afraid. That's not normal. You have to wonder, “Were other animals talking in the garden or was Eve just purely curious because she didn't know fear the way we do?” A serpent would not have been scary to her if she's willing to go up and talk to it. You know what I mean? Or maybe she was just super courageous, I don't know.
These are just questions that we ask and you can have fun discussing those in your podcast clubs because we don't have an answer for you.
Emily: I think no matter what, when we look at creation, we know there wasn't a struggle with sinful fear before this and they were just meant to fear the Lord, but then FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) wrecked the earth. I saw that as an article title and I didn't even read the article, but I was like, "Yes, that is so true." [laughter]
Laura: It's so true. They experienced total FOMO because she was like, "Well, what am I missing out on if I don't eat that fruit."
Emily: You can go read Genesis 3—actually, I think that's really, really important as we're talking about creation and the fall—if you have not read through that account of Genesis 1-3, go read through that exchange, the back and forth she's having with the serpent and how he starts to question and undermine by saying, "Well, is this really true? Well, you could be like, God.” She starts wondering, "Yes, maybe I am missing out. Maybe I can have more, maybe God is holding out on me." That leads to horrific sin that separates them from the Lord.
Laura: That's really what fear is. Isn't it? It's this idea that, “Maybe I'm missing out, maybe because I do this or don't do that I'm going to miss out.” It could be, “I'm going to end up in the hospital and so I'm going to miss out on a good life.” Or “I'm going to end up being shunned by my friends and I'm going to miss out on being accepted and loved,” or whatever it is, but that started the spiral of fear as we know it today.
I think it's interesting to look and think that previously, when they had heard God's voice, they weren't afraid when they heard it. Then, as soon as God spoke again, they were super afraid and they ran away and they went and tried to hide from him. They have this fear of their nakedness or felt shame that God would see them as they really were. It started this spiral of fear as we know it today.
Emily: All kinds of new fears, I think, come into play as well with death. Now, they're going to fear because they're going to die in their mortal bodies. They see animals killed to make skins that they're going to wear. To see the spilling of blood for the first time and to let that sink in. Of course, as they're leaving the garden, it's like, can you imagine going out of the garden where you've had all the food that you need, all the protection, the Lord is walking with you, all of these wonderful things. You don't know what you're going to come up against, now wild animals are scary. There are so many things that they would have had to fear for the very first time.
Laura: I just think about them and how they knew what a life without fear looked like. We really don't have a concept of that, but they had to go out and face these fears. They would not only have the new emotion of fear, but also this idea of what they left behind. I think too about just the cherubim and the flaming sword. This is a really interesting thing that God puts out. If we think angels are scary, go look up some artist renderings of cherubim and you're going to be like, "Okay, that's terrifying."
Emily: [laughs]
Laura: Downright terrifying. We read that they had a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the tree of life. I would imagine that was pretty scary for them, a good scare like we were talking about a natural fear or something that said, "Hey, don't enter here."
God put that there to protect them from entering back into the garden, which was really a mercy at that time, as we watch God's story unfold. He protected them from entering back in because of their sin and they still needed the atonement of Christ to be able to go back in. Anyway, it was just a neat thing to draw out.
Emily: Well, I think that transitions well though into the greatest fear that all of us should have, which is of death and God's judgment, right? Because that was the major issue that became of this sin that was committed. Now we not only have to fear dying once but dying twice. I was just collecting a few different scriptures, and there are so many throughout the Bible that talks about the judgment that is going to come.
2 Corinthians 5:10 says for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Then, there are verses that talk about how we're going to account for every word that we speak, how every single one of our motives is going to be exposed and that there is eternal punishment and rejection that happens as a result of our sin.
Laura: You're so right. Those things are really scary. I think that these are a lot of the things that we're wrestling with in motherhood. They are either trying for us to prevent death or prolong our life or our own children's lives. That's us picking a certain food, taking certain safety precautions, or just making decisions as we shape their days and experiences. Or we're looking to justify ourselves with others. We want to look good, we want to look like we have it all right, we want to look like we're a good enough mom. We are making a lot of our decisions based on this sinful fear that entered in the fall.
Emily: Right. It's almost interesting because we mimic some of what we see in Adam and Eve after the fall of both running from the Lord and being afraid of him. Even in our motherhood, if we don't have Christ, then we are maybe avoiding the things of the Lord, rejecting the things of Scripture and just feeling like the things of the Lord are so foreign. I think deep down, many people have this sense of like, "I'm going to be judged. I'm not doing a good enough job." Then they're walking around with that fear because it's true.
Laura: [laughs] Yes. This, right here. Some of these reasons that we're talking about, this fear of not being able to put him first in our lives because we're always putting other things first, is why Christ came. He came to reorient our fear. He came to conquer death, the thing that we are so afraid of, to take the fangs out of death. I love knowing that no matter how scary something is to me, I can remember that God is Lord over all and that he has conquered it all. Every single thing submits to his power and to his authority, and God is the one who ultimately comforts, loves, provides, and shows mercy to us. He is the one that deserves our follow and he deserves all of our fear, but the right kind of fear.
Emily: It's encouraging to know that right there, in the beginning as we're talking about the fall and what happens in Genesis 3, God promises to make a way for his people to come back to him. That he's going to crush the head of the serpent. We know that he does that. We see that thread pulled all the way through the Old Testament to the New Testament when Jesus comes, where we know that he didn't stay out of the fray, he came down to this earth and he experienced many of the same things that we do. He stared death in the face and he conquered it.
That's where we get into this part where it's like, look, death cannot harm us anymore because Jesus came. We see all of these provisions and one of the ways that he provides for our fear is an example of his life.
Laura: Emily and I just spent some time thinking about Christ's life and where he might've experienced some fear. I think one place that really has stuck out to me is this idea of when Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. This is in Mark 1:12-13 and it says that he was there being tempted by Satan. He was in the wilderness, he had no food. There's this part that says he was with the wild animals. Just what a contrast that is from Adam and Eve in the garden, right? Jesus was with the wild animals, animals that could probably sense his weakness from not having any food, and they probably wanted to eat him up. Talk about fear. Adam and Eve go from luxuriously hanging out with the lions to now Christ is dealing with these guys wanting to take his life in the wilderness and Jesus overcomes that.
Emily: There are so many things that he overcomes. Even as he's looking ahead to the cross and what that's going to mean, we find out in Hebrews 2, that it was for the joy that was set before him, that he endured that. Then in Isaiah 11, we know that his delight is in the fear of the Lord and he trusted God. We see that in his life he obeyed his father and he followed his father all the way to the point of death.
As we are supposed to follow Christ and be obedient and walk in his way, some of the things we're going to talk about for us in motherhood is, what does it mean for us to obey God? Because we know that there is joy at the end of this road, at the end of this life when we're with him forever. What does it mean for our delight to be in the fear of the Lord, and to trust him just like Christ did and to know, yes, that way led him through death?
That means that in this life, some of the obedient acts that we're going to take, whether it be in motherhood, or in different aspects of our life—maybe walking through really hard things, and even being willing to face a physical death—but knowing that Jesus died, so that that's not the end of our story.
Laura: Oh, man, amen. I mean, this has been such a helpful thing for me to really dig in and get in deeper under my skin, I think, because there's this idea that we've talked about, on the show before in the past, that, if I'm going to be on this earth for 60, 70, 80 years, I want to be able to give it all to Christ, and to not fear death, not fear suffering, not fear hard things, because I know that because of Christ, Hebrews 2:14, he destroyed the one who had the power of death, and that means that death has no hold on us.
I don't know about you, Emily, but I just feel like that has been a great motivator for me in the midst of fear and hard things to somewhat be able to say, “I have a huge future ahead of me, but because of Christ’s life and death here, he paved a way for us to live courageous and fearlessly, from especially sin, and from even the natural things because I fear the Lord. I have that right religious fear in place that undergirds everything that I do if I'm in Christ.” That has been so helpful for me, as I process through my own life and decisions I make. I think that has been helpful to just be in worship and in awe of what Christ did for me. What he did back then changes my life today.
Emily: Right. I know, we said this at the beginning of the show, but I love that phrase, “If he takes the fangs out of death.” It can't really give you a mortal blow, because it doesn't ultimately have any power. That leads us to the hope that we have in consummation because whether we live or we die, we get Christ, and we have a wonderful future waiting for us.
Laura: Yes, I think this is such an amazing day to look forward to, the day when we will be free from fear. We will re-enter back to that Edenic state that Adam and Eve enjoyed, where we are far beyond the reach of death. I mean, it'll be even better actually, because we're beyond the reach of Satan, right? We're beyond the reach of evil. There will no longer be any of those temptations when we hit that day of consummation, when Christ comes to bring us back and join us with a great cloud of witnesses. I think until then, we can look ahead to eternity, to inform how we think about fear today.
One of the things that we have is the assurance of God's providence in our lives, "He performeth the thing that he has appointed for me," Job 23:14. We know that God is in control, and he has our lives. He has them numbered our days from beginning to end, and so we can live with that peace in the midst of really fearful circumstances because we know that Christ rules our days.
Emily: Yes. The other thing we also can know is God's comfort in the midst of whatever hard and fearsome thing we're facing right now. We know that from 2 Corinthians 1, where it talks about the father of mercies is our comfort in whatever affliction it is that we are facing.
Laura: Yes. The last piece is that we don't have to lose heart, we can have courage in the midst of really fearful things. If we think of Russell Moore, he says, "Courage is needed not only to do radically important things but to live out a quiet ordinary life with integrity and love." No matter what we're facing, and some days it will just be those quiet ordinary lives and some days it feels like we might be facing bigger things that are coming our ways, especially as Christians, we can trust that we have hope, this is not the end of the story for us, and so we don't lose heart in the midst of it. We see that light that comes and shines the brightest in the darkness.
I think that this, for both Emily and I, is just an exciting hope for the Risen Motherhood community, that we would see an entire generation of mothers really change the storyline for what it means to be a mom. Oftentimes, I think moms are stereotyped as being really fearful women and being anxiety-ridden and worried. I think that's something that having consummation in mind and knowing the full gospel story, we can really change that.
We can change the statistics about moms, and we don't have to be women who are totally afraid of what's ahead, but instead we are women who can look to the future and know that even if the whole world is falling apart, we still trust in our faithful God and we can follow the example of, not only all the women of the Bible that we talked about on the past couple of episodes, but also of our Christ and our Lord. We know that Christ is bigger and better than anything this world has to offer, we can rest in him and not lose heart in the face of what we're dealing with now.
Emily: Yes, I love that verse in John 16:33, where Jesus says, "I have said these things to you, that in me, you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." Jesus is not ignoring the fact that we're going to have tribulation, there's going to be hard things, there's going to be scary things, but he has overcome them.
That's the hope that we have. In whatever situation we are facing today, whether it’s not being sure about the mask thing, or sickness, or whether or not you're able to get the groceries that you need, all of those things can be legitimate, very real afflictions and tribulations that we are facing, but Jesus Christ provides our deepest peace. That's the hope that we have now. It's the hope that we have forevermore, and it is a very real tangible thing.
Laura: Yes. I want to end with these lines from Amazing Grace. It says, "Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved; How precious did that grace appear. The hour I first believed." Just those lines, "Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved." It’s really powerful to think about what we talked about with Christ's atoning work and how it taught us to fear God and have our fear rightly placed, and how it relieved those sinful fears, or even those natural fears, that we have because we know that we can fear God the most, overall.
Emily: Amen. Well, we hope that you'll come back next week. We are going to dive into more about what it looks like to fear the Lord, what we do when something is frightening, and how we practically respond to that. We hope you'll join us again for the whole fear series. You can find us @risenmotherhood on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and at risenmotherhood.com, where you can find our show notes and all of our extra resources there.
Laura: Thanks, guys.