{"id":7339,"date":"2020-05-20T13:01:43","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T18:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.brethren.org\/?p=7339"},"modified":"2020-05-20T13:01:43","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T18:01:43","slug":"ebrethren-5-20-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/2020\/05\/20\/ebrethren-5-20-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear and faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Nolan McBride, Brethren Volunteer Service worker for Youth and Young Adult Ministry<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThrough my fear, I trust in God.\u201d Nobody at the National Youth Cabinet planning meeting last February guessed just how appropriate the theme we chose for this year\u2019s National Youth Sunday (based on Psalm 56:1-4) would become. As we see rising rates of COVID-19 infection and related death totals on the news, fear is a natural reaction. It would be easy to say: \u201cThe Bible tells us not to fear and it will all work out as God wills.\u201d Although this may be true, it is not exactly helpful in the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word \u201cfear\u201d appears 515 times in the New Revised Standard Version. Skimming through the results on Bible Gateway, many of those refer to fearing God\u2014which itself could be an entire article. But scripture passages like Psalm 56 assure us we need not fear the threats of \u201cmere mortals\u201d when we trust in God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The psalmist in Psalm 56 describes being persecuted by others. It is attributed to David, who pretended to be insane in order to escape the Philistine king he\u2019d sought refuge from while evading King Saul. What if the danger is not an easily identifiable person or a group, but instead something invisible to the naked eye? In this moment, I am drawn to an image Julian of Norwich recounts in Revelations of Divine Love<\/em>, the first known book to be written in English by a woman. A visionary, Julian recounts how God:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShowed by a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, lying in the balm of my hand. It was as round as a ball, as it seemed to me. I looked at it with the eyes of my understanding and thought \u2018What can this be?\u2019 My question was answered in general terms in this fashion:  \u2018It is everything that is made\u2026 It lasts, and ever shall last, because God loves it. And in this fashion all things have their being by the grace of God.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are upheld by the love and grace of a God who, as the song many of us learned in childhood goes, has \u201cgot the whole world in his hands.\u201d This too shall pass. There are no easy answers. But as God promises us in scripture, and as Jesus assured Julian:  \u201cAll shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally featured in the spring\u00a0<\/em>Bridge newsletter produced by the Youth and Young Adult Ministry office. Learn more about this ministry of the Church of the Brethren at www.brethren.org\/yya<\/a> or support its work today at www.brethren.org\/giveyya<\/a> .<\/em>

(Read this issue of eBrethren<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tRead a reflection by Nolan McBride and a Pentecost Offering prayer by Becky Ullom Naugle in this week’s issue.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebrethren"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}