God Will I Fear

In my morning reading today I was struck by three verses from Psalm 46. They perfectly express what I imperfectly attempted to express in What Do You Fear. Fear of the dark seems petty in light of not fearing "though the earth gives way." What a mighty Lord and Savior we serve!

     1 God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
     2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be move into the heart of the sea,
     3 though its waters roar and foam,
through the mountains tremble at it's swelling.
   Selah. 

In Christ,

Paul

What Do You Fear

Last night I accompanied my youngest sister out to do the animals because it was well after sun down. She hasn't quite gotten over her fear of the dark, but she's doing way better than I was at her age! But as I helped her shoo the last of the chickens into their barn, I started thinking about fear.

Fear of the dark is something that it seems most people suffer from at some point in their life. But why? What's so scary about the dark? I would wager that it's not actually the dark that scares people, it's what could be in the dark that has some people (my former self included) jumping at every rustle or snap. Sophocles once said

"To him who is in fear, everything rustles."

It's really fear of the unknown. When we don't know what's out there, our minds can be uncannily  good at scaring the dickens out of us with the ridiculous, and more often than not, unreasonable scenarios that it can come up with.

But as a man whom I respect much more than him of the above quote has said,

"My religious belief teaches me that I’m just as safe on the battlefield as I am in my bed.  The Lord has already appointed the day of my death so I need not worry about that." ~Stonewall Jackson

Fear of anything shows a lack of trust in God. If I'm afraid of what could be out there just because I can't see it, that is evidence that I lack trust in my Savior. If I truly love Him, and trust His plans
and timing, then I should be one of the most fearless people alive!

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love" ~1 John 4:18"

Abrogation of Personal Privacy, and How to Fly Safely

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” 

These timeless words spoken by Ben Franklin went through my mind as I stared into the distance in front of me at the Nashville International Airport. This wasn't the first time that I've opted out of the backscatter scanners, nor was it the first time I'd received an "enhanced" pat down.

But unlike the many atrocious reports you've probably read or heard about of aggressive, rude, obnoxious patter downers, I've always had fairly uneventful and painless (or as painless as having a gloved hand running around my waist band can be) experience with the TSA. So I really can't really personally relate to some of the outrageous stories that have been told (like this one).

But that's no excuse to accept these kinds of invasions into our personal privacy just "to obtain a little temporary safety." This kind of violation wouldn't have been tolerated even a decade ago, but today, people will go through nearly anything so long as it's 'for your safety.'

What's even more sobering is the knowledge that the airports are only the first step. The distrust of Americans will eventually move to more general public places like stadiums and schools (oh wait, we already have that), and will only become more and more invasive. But are we actually safer in the air and on the ground today then we were in a pre 9/11 world? I would wager that we're not.

But I know the solution to this whole problem: weapons, maybe even assault rifles.

Yes, I just said that, allow the thing that liberals have nightmares about, and constantly rail against, onto planes. Actually though, they're already on a lot of planes. Many pilots are allowed to have a gun in the cockpit, and more than 10% are armed in the sky (per this not-so happy-about-it article).

Just as arming American citizens can and has protected innocent life on the ground in schools and in public, allowing the people to protect themselves and those around them while in the air will not only make us safer, but it will preserve our liberty and freedom.