In some ways, fear is hard to talk about without sounding insensitive on one hand or irrational on the other. At a very basic level, fear is a natural and even God-ordained mechanism. Researchers have found that infants as young as ten months will refuse to crawl near a place of perceived danger. Fears that keep us safe are, up to a point, normal and even necessary. Some people develop more specific phobias, like a fear of dogs or airplanes. Even here we should not be unkind. It may not be helpful to tell a man with a fear of heights or a fear of germs that he should just have more faith.

Yet the Bible also connects fear with the entrance of sin into the world (Gen. 3:10–11). There was nothing to fear before then! And further, the Lord Jesus asked His disciples, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Mt. 8:26). It is plain that fear can be debilitating and even sinful if we focus on the unknown rather than on the God who knows the future.

What then should we do with our fears? Ignore them? Suppress them? Condemn them? The Bible addresses the subject with realistic complexity. In 2 Corinthians 7, Paul wrote candidly of his fears in the face of trouble. Yet he also wrote that God has not given a “spirit of fear” (2 Tim. 1:7). Was Paul being inconsistent? No. A spirit of fear—that paralyzing anxiety that darkens our souls—never comes from God. However, if we feel afraid, we have not sinned by admitting it.

For believers, the question is this: If we feel fear, what will we do next? A beautiful expression comes from Psalm 56:3, when David said to God, “Whenever I am afraid …” what then? I will be ashamed? I will cover it up? I will pretend I am not? No. David said to God, “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.”