God is bigger than...

I often think a lot about fear during Lent. Maybe its the darkness of the season. Perhaps it's coming face to face with our sin? Maybe it's that in order to enjoy the Resurrection we have to journey to the cross and lets be real the journey to the cross can be scary sometimes...I don't know...but lent makes me think about fear.

What are we afraid of? What are you afraid of? What am I afraid of?

 I never have been one to let fear take over my life or decisions...certainly I can think of a few times in my life I have been really afraid...and really, fear is not a bad thing, to a point. Fear is a natural human reaction to danger-it sometimes keeps us out of trouble. It sometimes whips us into shape. It sometimes breaks us to the point where we can be made whole again. Sometimes fear is good.

During Lent, though, I think about how fear affects our journey of faith. Time after time in scripture we hear the words "Do not be afraid" from Jesus and messengers of God. We read one of my favorite verses from 1 John, "perfect love casts our fear" and we take heart in God's promise to us that we will never be left alone...that God will never forsake us....that nothing in the world (nothing!) can separate from God's love...so there is no reason to fear.  

Yet, at the same time we read Psalms, or songs and prayers of God's people calling out in fear. We see a disciple who the minute he realizes he is walking on water freaks out and begins to sink. We see disciples scared to death from the storm. We read about God's people sent out into the wilderness alone, hungry, and afraid of what's ahead.

When I was a teenager babysitting and teaching Sunday school I learned the Veggie Tales song "God is Bigger Than The Boogie Man". The chorus "God is bigger than the boogie man.
He's bigger than Godzilla, or the monsters on TV. Oh, God is bigger than the boogie man. And He's watching out for you and me" is cute and comforting (and of course true)...I sing the song sometimes when I am scared or anxious because I know God is  truly bigger than any of those things after all God is God!

Yet, sometimes these words don't seem enough. Lent reminds us that the world is a scary, broken, and hungry place. It reminds us both personally and as a church that we desperately need God to intervene. Famine, war, pain, young people dying, children without homes, mental illness, loneliness, addiction, failure, abuse, broken hearts just begin to name things that really are scary in this world...things that make me cry out 'How long Oh Lord? I know you're bigger than these, but seriously, intervene now!".

As God's people we are called to not live in fear. That is clear. We are called to live in the light and promises of God's radical love and grace given to us, and all people, on the cross.

 But maybe, just perhaps, in Lent we are called to be a little afraid? To lose a little sleep. To tremble a little over the brokenness of the world. Maybe we are called to claim our fear, name it, and continue to walk in it all the way to the cross?

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