The World’s Not Spinning Out of Control

By Grant Walker

I have recently been battling a bad case of vertigo.  For those that have had episodes like this before, you can sympathize with me. And if you haven’t, put your forehead on the end of a baseball bat, spin 30 times and then go try to live life.  The nausea, headaches, and crankiness it causes are awful.  But, for me, the worst part about it is the feeling that the world is spinning out of control.  

Every step is uncertain. Every position change might make things worse. And it is unknown as to when it will stop.  With the tragic shootings that recently happened in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs, and with all the devastation happening from hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., one could easily start to feel as if our world is spinning out of control.  Every day we turn on the news we almost expect there to be another catastrophe.  Its seems we barely have enough time to read the news and catch up on this one before the next one hits.  

Many become fearful and want to do something, but don’t know what.  We want to get control of our seemingly out of control world. We want the spinning chaos to stop. And so we find different things to do.  Some people pray, some politicize, some reach for religion, some reach for rationalism. 

What happens when the world is spinning?  We cling to something or someone that is not.  We need someone to cling to that is unchanging, stable, a rock, a fortress, and always there.  While this fear we have in life doesn’t seem right, it does strangely feel like we are to fear something.  We just fear the wrong things.

“the fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied”
Proverbs 19:23 
 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
​ Hebrews 13:8 

We are to conduct ourselves with a fear of God.  This is not a popular topic to talk about. And it’s definitely not how to draw big crowds to a new church plant.  People want to hear about the love of God, talk about the closeness of God, focus on the gentleness and patience of God. These things are all of course true and good.  But of this God, we should be in awe and have a healthy fear.
 
Most of us don’t fear him, but instead we fear everything else in life.  Our lives are full of anxieties and fears.  We fear not having enough money. We fear people we love dying. We fear terrorist attacks. We fear germs, small spaces, heights, animals, and bugs. We fear glitter (or at least I do).

We fear anything and everything.  And I would like to propose that one reason anxiety and fear seems to be so widespread today is that we have lost our awe and fear of God.  When I feel the heaviness of anxiety and the crippling effects of fear, God has reminded me through His word, that there is something I should fear.  In fact, it’s not a something, it’s a someone.  And that is God himself!  Do not fret over and fear the things of this world.  Fear God!

If I’m fearing God, then I can “fear not” in all other areas of life.  We were made to fear God and live life.  Not live without God and fear life.

We were made to fear God and live life.  Not live without God and fear life.

---

“To trust God in the light is nothing, but trust him in the dark — that is faith.”
-Charles Spurgeon

When we have a healthy fear of our unchanging, good, faithful, loving, and compassionate God we can rest in the reality that the world’s not spinning out of control.