in fear and faith…
Posted by jaked | Filed under i don't need no stinking label
so in my spare time i’ve played through two different games, “homefront” and “dead space.” i know what you’re thinking… “great, another video games inspired blogpost.” but hear me out there’s more to it. both games rely heavily on the fear factor to really keep you engaged but they do it on two very different levels.
the first, “homefront,” deals with fear on a more realistic level. the game tells of a future in that through a pretty well written couple events like the economic fall of america and the forceful re-uniting of north and south korea. the new korea, still referred to as north korea, invades america “red dawn” style. i don’t know about you but when i saw that movie when i was a kid i was terrified. in the game you play a member of the american resistance, trying to recover the america we know and love…
“dead space” is another beast altogether. dead space introduces fear on a more jaw-busting, bladder-emptying terror sort of way. this game just furthered my understanding that, despite how much i enjoy zombie stuff, scary just really isn’t my cup-of-tea.
both these games really got me thinking about fear in general, and more specifically my fear. or even more specifically my fear of fear and how i realized that fear really controls much of my life in much less funny or entertaining ways.
what bugs me the most about fear is how paralyzing it really is. how it slows down and kills any sort of momentum that’s gained at the drop of a hat. it reminds me of those old roadrunner & coyote or tom & jerry cartoons when a tub of glue is spilled across the floor and the character is halted in his tracks. but it doesn’t just stop the parts of the body that are touching the glue but every part of their body is frozen like a statue. but i guess you can’t fault talking cartoon animals to be very realistic…
if you look at writing and telling a story it’s the stories that deal with anxieties in a realistic and bold manner that seem to tell the best story.
fear has kept me from many, many things. for example it was fear that kept me from losing weight. (on the upside it was sort of a motivation as well…) honestly it’s fear (as well as the lack of a laptop) that really keeps me writing on this blog more. i worry that writing, tweeting, and whatever else about myself may seem vain and neurotic. i’m worried that i may have just misused the word “neurotic” and and that my friends with big vocabularies will think i’m a hack and dumb.
i worry that i don’t talk about my faith enough on here and that my christian friends won’t think i’m a good christian. or that if i talk about my faith too much my friends who don’t share the same beliefs as me will think i’m just a religious nut-job and a weirdo. i’m worried that admitting these two things makes me look like an even bigger weirdo…
these things work themselves out into social interactions, my job raising support, and my real life in general too. the specific list is probably too long to really hash out here but i would say alot, if not most of them have to do with how people see and perceive me. in the end most of my fears usually stem from a place of feeling inadequate or wanting people to like me more. (man that feels so lame to write, but it’s true)
lately i’ve found a great deal of comfort from two specific passages from matthew and luke in the Bible.
matthew 6:25-33
“therefore i tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. are you not of more value than they? and which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? and why are you anxious about clothing? consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, o you of little faith? therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘what shall we eat?’ or ‘what shall we drink?’ or ‘what shall we wear?’ for the gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
and Luke 12 4-7
“i tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. but i will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. yes, i tell you, fear him! are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? and not one of them is forgotten before God. why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
i don’t really like birds either Jesus, it’s cool!
Tags: eu
